The Trouble With Love Is
by KittyKat06
Summary: Kevin is brutally attacked in the parking garage at General Hospital. The Cassadine/Spencer war is reignited because of a new development. When those two things intersect, what does it mean for Kevin and Laura's brand-new relationship? KevLaur A/U
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: This story follows canon up until Nikolas faking his death, then takes a hard right into A/U territory. Nikolas never faked his death and never died for real. The Cassadine Island storyline never happened. And the Lulu Embryo Child business isn't going to happen either. If Lulu happens to get pregnant in this story it will be with her and Dante's embryo that magically would have survived the explosion at Creighton-Clark. Because of Helena. Reasons. And a commercial break :o)**

 **If there is anything else you need to know that I've forgotten that's important I'll let you know in the next author's note. Until then, I hope you enjoy my first foray into KevLaur ;)**

* * *

Laura Spencer sighed as she came home to Wyndemere and saw all the books and papers of Spencer's afternoon with his tutors sprawled out across the formal dining room table. She'd had a long and not entirely productive day and cleaning up after her precocious grandson wasn't exactly high on her to-do list. Calling for Spencer to come back here and straighten up the table didn't do much good, and of course Nikolas wasn't anywhere to be found, either. A couple of weeks ago she'd gone to Nikolas privately and talked to him about the fact that Spencer was getting older and needed to stop counting on the servants to clean up after him and attend to his every need. Nikolas, maybe finally feeling guilty about putting his mother in a horrible position for the last year when it came to Hayden and the Jason lie, told the help at Wyndemere to back off cleaning up after Spencer. Laura knew it defeated the purpose of what she was trying to teach him when she organized his papers for him, but she couldn't stand it for another minute to see it scattered all over the table.

She sighed again as she set the small pile of books and papers on the far end of the table where Spencer would see them tomorrow and thought about adding a post-it note that the next time the table wasn't clean after his tutoring hours, it would be coming out of his obnoxiously-large allowance. Laura thought she was done raising children but she swore sometimes she felt more like Spencer's mother than his grandmother. Nikolas did the best he could as a single parent but he'd been so focused on Elizabeth, Hayden and protecting the Jason secret for the last year and a half that he'd practically left Spencer to raise himself.

Not that he couldn't do it, Spencer Cassadine was the most resourceful ten year old she'd ever met, but he still needed his father.

And maybe Nikolas still needed his mother. She'd gone along with keeping the secret because Nikolas was her son and she loved him and Elizabeth had been her daughter-in-law for awhile and was the mother of three of her grandsons but she had to admit to herself that she was horrified to hear it from his own mouth how far her son would go to make sure the secret of Jason Morgan's identity stayed a secret. Even though leaving her firstborn baby on that island to be raised by Cassadines almost certainly shaped him into the kind of man that would put a contract hit out on the woman he was dating so she wouldn't spill the secret to Jason and Sam. In a twisted sort of way it made sense that Laura had overheard by accident the truth and got swept away into keeping the secret because of misplaced guilt over Nikolas or whatever the psychiatrist had said it was, because it was her fault he'd been raised by the Cassadines. Helena Cassadine was nothing if not twisted and she loved nothing more than hurting Spencers.

Laura was tidying up the rest of the table and heading back to the living room when she heard the faint buzzing of her phone. Good thing too, because she had forgotten where she left it and needed the sound to track it. A few minutes later she found it in the pocket of one of Spencer's school folders - how it ended up there she hadn't a clue - and saw two notifications, a voicemail and an email from Kevin Collins that she'd look through later before she called him back (no doubt it was about Helena and her codes and mind games) and a text message from her daughter Lulu.

 _Dante and I have our appointment at the doctor's today. With any luck, you'll have a new grandchild by this time next year! Call you tonight, I love you!_

Laura had to shake her head at Lulu's unflinching cascade of excitement over all things pregnancy and baby that came through even over text, but she nevertheless smiled as she typed a small message back wishing her luck. It wasn't a secret that Lulu desperately wanted to experience pregnancy and have her own biological child (Laura had gently reminded Lulu about Rocco the first time her daughter had come at her with the 'biological child' claim) and this embryo that Dante and Lulu had in storage was their last chance.

Lulu and Dante had come a long way in the last year, after his one-night stand and mini-affair with her cousin and her misguided attempts at revenge had gotten Valerie caught in a cabin that caught fire and almost killed, but after soul searching and counseling and lots of nights when Lulu had fled to Wyndamiere in tears to commiserate with her mother, they seemed to be getting their marriage back on track. Laura assumed so, at least. She'd told Lulu to talk to Dante more and her less. At least someone in the Spencer/Cassadine family seemed to have their love life going on the right track.

Or had any attempt at a love life at all, to be honest. The only man Laura had spent any significant amount of time with since her divorce was Kevin Collins and he wasn't anything to her except a very good friend that chose to spend his little free time helping her figure out what Helena meant by this latest way to taunt her from beyond the grave. He was kind and good and had become a good friend to her these last few months (and, if she had to be honest, he was attractive) but she didn't think about him that way. She hadn't thought about any man that way since she and Luke split up for good.

Laura checked the time clock on her phone before typing out a quick response to Kevin's email. Dr. Collins was nothing if not predictable and she was relatively sure this was when he took his lunch break, so at least if he had his phone on and heard the ping she wouldn't be interrupting him in front of his patients. If she'd learned anything important about Kevin these last few months, his professional standards at work were very important to him.

Before she knew what she was doing she had pulled up his name in her text message contacts and sent him a basic text for him to call her at the end of his day or whenever he had a free minute. There was something about Helena's latest code she needed to ask him.

The little moving dots told her that he must not be with a patient because he was answering her right away and she didn't want to think about how and why that made her smile. She didn't think about Kevin Collins that way. She didn't.

Maybe if she kept telling herself that, she'd start to believe it.

* * *

Kevin Collins had seen the email from Laura seconds before the text notification popped up and decided to answer the text because that was faster. He had back-to-back patients all afternoon and had to cut his usual lunch hour in half due to a few mini-emergencies his secretary left him with when she went on vacation which meant, unfortunately, he didn't have time to talk to Laura now. He probably wouldn't have time until after he left the office; he was looking at taking at least an hour's worth of work home with him today. Seemed like everyone in Port Charles had chosen this week to have appointments with a psychiatrist.

Which was something he didn't mind, he loved his work and for the past three years it had been the only thing keeping him distracted from the dull ache that cropped up even still at the thought of Lucy and what transpired to lead to their divorce, but he had been asked by Laura Spencer to help her crack Helena Cassadine's codes and he wanted to be available to Laura at a time that was convenient to her. He knew she had a lot on her plate lately, with Nikolas and Lulu, and Spencer, and her other grandchildren, and he didn't want this business with the Cassadines to hurt Laura anymore than it already had in her life.

Laura had slowly, reluctantly, started to talk to him about her past and what she and her family had gone through at the hands of Helena and the Cassidines - he wasn't a psychiatrist for nothing, he had learned that she was moderately more willing to talk if he framed the questions in a way that it would help them in their search if he knew more than the basics, but the first time he'd tried to ask her those same questions in a personal way she shut him down - and the more she told him the more he found himself enchanted and overwhelmed by everything that had happened to her.

If he could help her in any way to feel safe for the first time from Helena and the other Cassadines, he was going to move heaven and earth to do that for her. And then, if he could help her any way as a friend, hopefully he could do that too.

Kevin sent Laura a message saying that he had a busy day of patients and wouldn't have free time to talk until the end of the day but he'd call her after he got home and had dinner if that worked for her. Then he turned the ringer off his phone so he wouldn't be tempted to answer back when she responded.

He checked his watch. Fifteen more minutes until his next appointment, perfect. He did need to go down to the ER to get the most recent medical file of a patient but Elizabeth Webber worked as a nurse in the ER and he was hoping to talk to her for a few minutes if he could. Laura had spoken of Elizabeth enough time in conversation that he knew they were close and he was hoping Elizabeth would have the heart to give him what he needed to know, if he asked nicely enough. He didn't want her to feel like she was going behind Laura's back.

Kevin turned the sound on for his phone and set a reminder alarm for ten minutes. He locked the door to his office and headed for the elevators for the floor to the emergency room and as luck would have it, Nurse Webber was at the desk. Fantastic. That would save him the one or two minutes to try and find her. He went to the desk and waited for Elizabeth to look up from the main computer. "Nurse Webber, do you have a few minutes?"

Elizabeth lifted her head to acknowledge him but her fingers continued to type patient information into the computer. "Yes, Dr. Collins, what can I do for you? With Dr. Maddox out of commission I'm surprised you have time to talk to me."

"I don't, I downsized my lunch hour and I have an emergency session in fifteen minutes, which is partly why I'm here," he admitted. Probably closer to eleven minutes now, if he was being honest. "I haven't had time to send someone down here much less come down myself, but Sofia's on vacation and I need the most recent files for a patient. Female in her mid-twenties is what they told me, she was brought in last night…"

"Got that one right here," Elizabeth finished for him, pulling a chart from its appropriate location and handing it to Dr. Collins. "Tough one, she tried to overdose on whatever pills she could find in the house. We're calling her Jane Doe for now. I didn't treat her, but Epiphany did. I can page her for you if you need to know anything else about her."

"Just the chart is fine, Elizabeth, thanks," Kevin said, reaching for the chart that she was handing him, glancing at the clock that hung on the far wall. Eight more minutes. Damn. He didn't know Elizabeth Webber well enough personally to call her on her off hours so if he didn't get out with it now he'd have to wait until tomorrow. "Can I ask you something else, though?"

"Something about the patient? I just told you I didn't treat her, Dr. Collins," she responded, her fingers again flying on the keyboard. "I don't know much more than what I told you, I'm sorry."

"No, no - not about the patient. And for the next few minutes you can call me Kevin and not Dr. Collins, if that's okay with you." That made Elizabeth finally stop typing and look at him. "It's a - personal matter. About Laura. Laura Spencer."

"When you say Laura I'm pretty sure I know who you're talking about, considering you've made it a point to come down here to and ask about her five times in the last two weeks." Elizabeth pushed some buttons in quick succession on the computer screen and turned to the man in front of her, resting her elbows on the desk. " _Kevin._ What are you getting at, exactly?"

"What's her favorite color?"

If Kevin had been looking he would have seen the momentary look of disappointment flash across Elizabeth Webber's face. She and Laura had history together, from her relationship with and marriage to Lucky to even her affair with Nikolas and she liked to think that she knew Laura pretty well, but more than that and even on a more basic level than that Elizabeth would have liked to think she knew how to figure out when a man liked a woman. 'Really? That's the personal question you wanted to ask me about Laura? The most non-emotional, non-in depth question you could think of that would still remotely qualify as a personal question? At least last week you asked what her favorite hobby was, though why you can't ask _her_ these questions I don't understand... _oh!_ " Elizabeth abruptly stopped herself with a triumphant smile on her face. Now she understood, or at least she thought she did. Her romance radar couldn't be completely broken.

Kevin was having enough trouble keeping up with Elizabeth's barrage of questions and now she stopped and was looking at him incredibly strangely. "I just thought that it might be nice if I -" Elizabeth came across the desk, tugged on his wrist and the sleeve of his coat, and pulled him to a quieter section of the emergency room. "Excuse me?"

"You like Laura, don't you? God, I can't believe I didn't see it before now, and it's so obvious. Well, as obvious as you ever allow yourself to be, you know, you're a private and closed-off sort of person, Dr. Collins."

Kevin held up his hand and thankfully, Elizabeth stopped talking. He wasn't comfortable being gossiped about and had a feeling that's exactly where this was headed if he didn't stop it right now. His and Lucy's divorce had been all anyone had talked about at General Hospital for months, especially considering the specific circumstances behind their divorce, and he didn't want that again. For him or for Laura. Not that there was anything to talk about. "Laura is my friend, Elizabeth, or at least I'd like to think that she is. I simply thought she would appreciate it if I did something nice for her this weekend that didn't have to do with Helena Cassadine or her past. I just wanted to ask you her preferences, that's all."

Elizabeth went on as if she hadn't heard a word he said. "Everything is making sense now," she murmured. "Laura seems like she's been in such a good mood lately, and - I never thought I'd see the day when **anything** having to do with that evil bitch Helena Cassadine made Laura smile. For whatever it's worth to you."

 _ **Now**_ Elizabeth was sure of her initial opinion and sure she was doing the right thing. The hesitation and barely perceptible look of hopefulness in Kevin Collins' eyes when he looked at her told her everything he and Laura both didn't want to admit to themselves or anyone else. "Excuse me?" he said again.

Kevin watched as Elizabeth Webber put her hand on his arm. "She's opened up to you more than she's opened up to anyone in a long time, Kevin, but you don't even know the half of what she's been through at the hands of the Cassadines. Laura is tough and she's strong and she's brave and she's nobody's fool. She had to make herself strong to survive all of these years. And - and she's smart, Kevin, she's so smart. Not just book smart but smart about what to do when you come face-to-face with a Cassadine. She could have started to work through those clues Helena left in her will on her own, especially after you started helping her and focusing her in a direction, don't you think?" Kevin only nodded, probably because he figured that was his safest option at the moment. "But she didn't. She kept coming back to you because she likes spending time with you." Elizabeth pulled her hand away from his sleeve and patted his hand. "Think about it. Now I have to get back to work and you have exactly ninety seconds to get back to your office for your patient."

Elizabeth shook her head and half-smiled to herself as she pulled another chart from the stack and headed in the direction of trauma room four. _Laura, I hope I did the right thing and you aren't too angry at me, but you are so lucky and you don't even know it,_ she thought as she scanned the first page of the chart. _Doc Collins has got it so bad for you._


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: I have to apologize to my two fantastic beta-readers for not properly acknowledging them last chapter. Susan ( susan_metadi) and Becky ( TrekBecky), thank you both for being my beta-readers and for helping me out with facts about GH history. Some aspects of Kevin and/or Laura's history and Kevin/Lucy's divorce will be different for the sake of the story but I needed their help to get the basic backstory right.**

* * *

Kevin did end up thinking about what Elizabeth Webber had said, more often than he wanted to think about. Not consciously. The thought of asking his closest female friend in years on a date came into his mind at the most inopportune times. Like when he was refilling his coffee at work in the five minutes he allotted himself in between patient sessions or when he had to squint to try and read his own handwriting when he attempted to organize client notes at the end of a day of work. When he tried to use all of his cryptology powers to unlock the next set of Helena's clues based on whatever latest information he had discovered because inevitably that caused him to think of Laura and reminded him all over again how brave she had to have been her entire life to deal with the Cassadines. When he was at home using the precious little free time he had to set up designated times that worked for both of them to be able to FaceTime with his daughter in France. The time difference between New York and France combined with his work schedule meant they only talked via FaceTime once a week and it was always the highlight of his week when he saw her face pop up on his laptop screen.

And here he'd been thinking the last six months had gone well for him, considering. Working on Helena's mysterious clues and going on what amounted to a scavenger hunt in and around Port Charles had done a lot to break up the monotony of his life when he wasn't working and he'd made a new friend in the meantime. At least he had spent all this time thinking she'd been a friend. Not once in the last half-year had he thought of Laura as anything other than a client or a friend. Now, because of what Elizabeth had said, for the past three weeks he hadn't been able to get her out of his head. He tried, but she was determined to stay in his mind.

Kevin wanted to be able to blame Elizabeth for bringing the situation to his attention entirely unprovoked - he had only talked to her for couple of minutes and even when he rewound the conversation in his mind couldn't remember that he had said anything to encourage this notion of hers - but that wouldn't be fair to Elizabeth. He wasn't a psychiatrist for nothing and his inner psychiatrist told him that deflection was just another form of denial and that Elizabeth couldn't have gotten this type of reaction out of him if the thoughts hadn't been buried deep inside him in the first place. Sometimes he hated his inner psychiatrist.

Not long after his and Lucy's divorce had been finalized his daughter had shown up at his new apartment and told him that enough was enough, she'd given him the requisite one month to wallow in self-pity and she wasn't going to let him shut himself off forever and eventually he did have to go on some dates and open himself up to the possibility of love again. It had taken the better part of eleven months for Christina to forgive her mother for the divorce and even now their relationship wasn't what it was. Lucy had tried to blame him for that but Kevin shut that down fast. Kevin purposefully had refused to tell Christina the whole truth of what Lucy had done and why he'd filed for divorce but Christina had found out, somehow, and without reservation she'd taken his side. (Because Lucy humiliated you in front of the whole town, he thought to himself.) Christina had gone running to his friend Mac Scorpio not long after that visit and they had conspired against him. Barely two months after the ink on the divorce decree dried, Mac had started setting Kevin up on dates.

Once-a-month dates had quickly become twice-a-month dates until it became every other week and finally once a week, and that had been when Kevin had to ultimately put his foot down and put a stop to the blind dates because it wasn't fair for him or any of the women for him to be on any sort of date when he didn't want to be. He and Lucy had been married for seventeen years, he'd raised her daughter since she was a toddler - the greatest joy of his life was having Christina call him daddy - and the end result of their marriage was that Lucy had broken most of if not all of his heart when she had openly cheated on him with their daughter's adoptive father.

Three years had passed since the day the the divorce papers had been signed by the judge and he was officially recognized as a single man, even though it would take him even longer to consider himself single. Three years that Kevin had thrown himself wholeheartedly into work and maintaining a bi-continental relationship with his daughter. The only dates he'd been on were the ones set up entirely by Mac, no matter how well-intentioned Mac might have been.

Three years since he had even thought about wanting to date - until now. Elizabeth Webber had opened the floodgates to the idea of Laura and him together in a romantic sense and he couldn't think of anything else now except how the idea honestly appealed to him. Which forced him to think about how embarrassing it would be for both of them if he stumbled through an attempt to ask her out on a date, considering he hadn't done anything remotely like that in years.

Kevin glanced at the bottom righthand corner of his computer screen and did a double-take. He had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't realized he'd stayed an extra thirty minutes tonight and Sofia wasn't there this week to keep him on schedule. He shutdown his computer and gathered his files and locked them in the appropriate cabinets so he wouldn't have to spend his first fifteen minutes tomorrow looking for the Anderson file. He picked up his briefcase, pushed in his chair and locked his office door. He was in the elevator and halfway to the ground floor, where he got off to take the stairs to the parking garage, when he for whatever reason pressed the button for the floor of the emergency room. If he remembered correctly from an earlier conversation he'd had with a colleague, Nurse Webber was on shift tonight. Kevin intended to share some of his most recent thoughts with her.

Namely that General Hospital wasn't a place for gossip and that he didn't intend for himself and Laura to be the newest target of made-up stories. He'd worked at the hospital long enough to know that the hospital gossip train worked faster than the regular Port Charles gossip track, a feat Kevin privately found fascinating in of itself. Elizabeth was a nurse, surely she could use her time more wisely with actual medical emergencies and not spend her time trying to start something where nothing existed. Yet. Maybe what bothered Kevin more than the gossip was the thought that something _might_ exist between him and Laura that other people seemed to know about.

People like Elizabeth Webber, someone who was a close friend of Laura's, her former daughter-in-law and mother of three of her grandchildren. Laura had told him once that Elizabeth would always be a daughter to her no matter her relationship with Lucky. It was because of Elizabeth that any of this was happening - if she hadn't said what she had said about Laura coming back to him because she enjoyed spending time with him and told him to think about it, Kevin could have spent his Saturday working on code-breaking and speaking to Laura on the phone in the evening as usual, maybe even meeting her at the MetroCourt for lunch, and everything would still be all right. It was hearing Elizabeth put words to the feelings and saying those words out loud that had brought Kevin's hopelessly confused feelings kicking and screaming to the front of his brain and once they were there he couldn't have put them back again even if he wanted to. Laura was suddenly in the forefront of all of his thoughts as an attractive woman. Here was an attractive woman that knew him, was close to him, and who he might possibly want to ask out on a date. And multiple dates after the first.

The elevator dinged and opened its doors to the emergency room floor and as luck would have it, Kevin didn't have to wait long until he saw Nurse Webber coming to the front desk from the direction of a patient's room. He stood back for a few minutes to allow her to do what she needed to do for her job but as soon as he saw her close the chart and go in the direction of the snack machines, he followed her.

Kevin waited patiently as she inserted her dollar into the machine, took a few seconds to consider her options and pressed the button for the snack she wanted. "Nurse Webber, if it's not too much trouble can I speak to you for a few moments, please?"

Elizabeth didn't even do the socially acceptable thing of trying to hide her wide smile when she noticed who was speaking to her, something which annoyed Kevin greatly. "Is it something personal again? About Laura?" Oh, how was your date, by the way? She's being very mysterious about the whole thing, just so you know. Won't tell me anything."

"You talked to her?"

"I texted her to ask if she wanted to meet the boys and I for dinner a few nights ago and I might have dropped your name into the conversation on purpose. She didn't have a clue what I was talking about." Judging by the look on Kevin's face, this was a very big deal. She grinned. "Are you two trying to keep things discreet? That's so sweet. I won't tell anyone, I promise."

"Are we trying to keep what discreet?"

She went on as if she hadn't even heard the question and reached into the little compartment of the vending machine to take out her candy bar. "Or if you don't care and the two of you are okay with making this thing between the two of you public, that works too. Word of advice: follow her lead. Whatever route she wants to take is the one you should go with."

Kevin squeezed the bridge of his nose and practiced his personal relaxation techniques and counted to ten. Somehow they had only been talking for two minutes and he felt like he was missing entire chunks of the conversation. She reminded him a lot of his ex-wife that way. "Elizabeth, what in the world are you talking about? I came down here to tell you that I very much do not want Laura and myself to become the topic de jour of hospital gossip and intrigue so if you could keep our last conversation to yourself I would appreciate it - how was our what?

Elizabeth looked at him blankly. She had already pushed the button for and retrieved a second candy bar, which she broke off a piece and offered half of the second one to him. Kevin politely said no. He had dinner on the slow-cooker waiting for him at home. "Your date," she repeated, speaking slowly as if she were speaking to a toddler. "You did ask Laura out on a date and took her out somewhere nice and romantic, didn't you? Please don't tell me you took her to Kelly's or The Floating Rib. Come on, Dr. Collins, she deserves so much better than that."

Kevin swallowed back the urge to give up and walk away. He hadn't realized until right this minute what a blessing it was that he and Nurse Webber specialized in different areas of medicine and thus worked on different floors. From the little he knew of her professionally she was an excellent nurse, but she made him uncomfortable asking questions he didn't want to answer. Though he assumed that was more his fault then hers given that he was the one that had sought her out. He could only hope she hadn't actually used the word date when she spoke to Laura about him. "Not that this is any of your business, but - no, I didn't take Laura on a date."

Her expression fairly screamed _we talked three weeks ago, what the hell have you been doing all this time?_ "I'm...sorry, I thought you would have by now. You looked like you wanted to the last time we talked."

He didn't want to tell her that was part of the problem - he wanted to ask her out and hadn't actively asked a woman out on a first date in at least fifteen years. "I'm thinking about the best way to go about the part of doing the asking," Kevin heard himself admitting. Why he was admitting any of this to Elizabeth Webber of all people, General Hospital gossip extraordinaire, he wished he knew. It was possible that part of him was hoping that by talking it out with a woman that knew Laura well and knew what she liked and didn't like, she would be some help for him. "I am afraid when it comes to that subject I am woefully out of practice."

Elizabeth had deposited her wrappers in the trash can, turning to walk back to the main desk and get back to her charting when she rewound in her head what Dr. Collins had just told her. "It's been three years, almost, since your divorce, isn't that right, Dr. Collins?" she asked hesitantly. He nodded after a few seconds and she boldly continued on, damned the consequences for her professionally if Dr. Collins was so insulted that he wanted to get her fired. Jake's grandmother was chief of staff here, she couldn't be fired. "You've been on dates since Lucy, haven't you? You're a good-looking man, you've had to have gone on some dates." Dr. Collins shook his head and Elizabeth bit her lip nervously. "You - haven't been on a date since your divorce?"

"Blind dates set up by my well-intentioned but meddling best friend and my daughter," he said with reluctance. Elizabeth saw it clear on his face how he looked like he wanted to retreat back from this conversation as soon as possible. "I haven't asked anyone out since my divorce, no, to answer your question. Haven't wanted to, honestly -"

"Until now." Kevin sighed when Elizabeth felt the need to finish his unfinished sentence. It wasn't her fault he hadn't asked Laura on a date. But it didn't mean he had to appreciate the intrusive nature of her questions. "Until you started spending so much time with Laura."

"Nurse Webber, I will make you a deal," Kevin said quietly. "If we talk next week and I still haven't asked her on a date yet, you have my permission to, within reason, get on my case to get it done. If and when I do ask her on a date, what I had originally stopped on this floor to tell you stands: Laura Spencer and myself, or my love life, or my lack of of a love life, is not a subject for on-call room conversations amongst the staff or any sort of hospital gossip. Am I making myself clear?"

She instinctively knew she had pushed her luck with Dr. Collins and didn't feel it necessary to bring up that she wasn't the one initiating these one-on-one conversations nor was she discussing these conversations with Sabrina, Felix or any of the other nurses. Dr. Collins was respected enough and had more than enough professional clout to get her fired if he wanted. "Oh, absolutely," she nodded. "I wouldn't want to hurt Laura for anything."

Kevin nodded. "Please see that you don't."

He headed back to the elevators and to his car in the garage and in under half an hour was parking his car in his driveway and unlocking his front door. Going inside he immediately shed his sports coat and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair and set his briefcase on the counter. Lastly he took his phone out of his coat pocket and have it visible on the counter with the ringer on in case someone decided to call him, however minute the chance was. Christina or calls from work were the only ones he felt obligated to answer right away no matter the time, and he had a specialized ringtone for Christina. Laura Spencer, though, was rapidly working her way into that exclusive three-person group. Kevin always enjoyed his phone calls with her.

He went to grab a beer and checked the slow-cooker to see for himself just how slow dinner was actually cooking. While he was waiting he retrieved a bowl from the cabinet, a spoon from the drawer, and went back to the refrigerator to see if there was anything in there that looked appetizing or if he needed to go to the grocery store this weekend. He was just closing the refrigerator door when he saw it stuck to the side with a magnet, the original scrap of paper Laura had written her phone number on six months ago. Her cell phone number, so they didn't have to communicate solely by email or message boards anymore. And even though Kevin had faithfully programmed her number into his phone and watched her do the same with his when they first met in person and agreed to work together to unravel Helena's mysterious clues, he had just as faithfully kept that paper scrap and stuck it to his fridge so it wouldn't get lost.

Over the course of their six months of working together and their friendship, it would be the first of many things he'd done for Laura without knowing at the time why he was doing them.

But now he thought he did know. It was quite possible that all of those little things he had done for her or with her in mind had led him to this moment right now.

Kevin forgot about what was simmering on the stove in the slow-cooker and set down his beer on the counter without sliding a napkin underneath like he always did. As if on autopilot he looked around his apartment and belongings, almost like he was seeing them for the first time. Books on cryptology and code-breaking piled high on a table in his living room because Laura had called him last night with a new development. Intermingled in the notepads and his papers half-filled with his notes were pieces of paper with a decidedly feminine handwriting, from their informal meeting sessions at the MetroCourt. There was even a reminder in her handwriting for him to remember to buy coffee filters the next time he was at the grocery store because she'd noticed he was running low. Laura's phone number on his refrigerator and her picture instead of her name as his contact in his cell phone. (Kevin had a hunch that if he went online to check his cell phone bill he would find that Laura was his most-called name of the last two months, not counting his daughter.) He had gone the extra step to set a reminder in his phone, even, to get in touch with Laura once a day every day by email or phone if for no other reason than to pick her brain and see if she had any new ideas for what Helena's mysterious clues could represent or a new angle they hadn't yet explored. Kevin spotted in his trash can the remnants of their Chinese take-out from earlier in the week when he'd invited Laura to his apartment last-minute because he had made an important discovery in regards to Helena and hadn't felt like going all the way out to Wyndemere. (The inner voice in his head told him that he easily could have just called her or sent her a long email but wanted to see her in person instead.) It had been close enough to dinnertime when Laura had arrived that he had felt compelled to feed her.

And from thinking about all of that it was a short step for Kevin to all of a sudden realize exactly just how much of his non-work related life revolved around Laura Spencer especially in the last six months, and how much he liked it that way.

Kevin's eyes tracked back to his refrigerator, to that scrap of paper with her phone number on it, to Laura's handwriting, and he made up his mind to stop talking himself out of the idea of trusting a woman. Laura wasn't like Lucy. She wouldn't hurt him the same way Lucy had. It scared him to put his faith, not to mention the small, unguarded piece of his heart he still had left, in Elizabeth Webber and to trust her that she was telling him the truth about Laura's feelings, simply because if he had learned anything in the last three weeks it was that he had feelings for her, too, and they weren't going away just because he wanted to push them down and ignore anything that had to do with it.

But he had to try. If she said yes or if she said no he had to try. Kevin couldn't ignore anymore the fervent hope that she'd say yes to a date with him.

Kevin took his beer back to the refrigerator and the bowl and silverware back to their assigned places. He reached for his phone and scrolled right away to Laura's phone number in his contact list, dialing her number and tucking the phone between his chin and his ear while simultaneously grabbing for his car keys and unplugging the slow-cooker with his other hand, dumping the entirety of its contents into the sink and running the garbage disposal. He'd get something to eat when he was in town. He might ask Laura if she wanted him to pick something up for her, too.

He was halfway to his car already when he heard Laura's soft and melodic voice on the other end of the line. "Kevin?" she asked. Kevin checked his watch and was surprised to see it was only six-thirty. When he called her in the evenings to talk Helena he usually called her between seven and eight because they'd discovered that was a time when both of them were for the most part free, no wonder she sounded surprised to hear him now. "When I said to call me when it was convenient for you, I didn't mean you had to call so soon after you got off work."

"I'm not calling to ask you anything about Helena or talk to you about Helena. Sometimes, Laura, I like hearing your voice and I get the urge to call you. Imagine that," he teased, smiling to himself when he was rewarded with her quiet laugh. He set the function for his BlueTooth and reversed his car out of the driveway. "I'm calling because I wanted to talk to you. Ask you something, if that's okay. Are you in the middle of something? I'd like to come out to Wyndemere to talk to you in person."

"It might be because I've trained myself to look for the hidden meaning in everything, but - that sounds more than a little ominous. Is everything alright?"

Kevin would have banged his head on the steering wheel in frustration if he hadn't been absolutely sure Laura would have heard him and asked him what was wrong. He was approaching this wrong, he knew it, and he hadn't even asked her out yet. He hadn't even worked it out in his head what he was going to say. Maybe he should have listened to that voice in his head and talked this asking-Laura-on-a-date plan over with Christina or Mac beforehand and gotten some advice. "Yes, everything is fine, Laura, I don't mean to scare you. That's the last thing in the world I want to do right now. Clearly I'm not prepared for this. Are you absolutely sure it's fine for me to come to Wyndemere?"

Kevin smiled in spite of himself because he could practically see her confused face in his mind. "Not prepared for - never mind. Nikolas is in nonstop emergency meetings with lawyers and he's probably thought up another scheme to keep ELQ out of Quartermaine hands even though Jason has been legally declared alive, and Spencer is with Dante, Lulu and Rocco for the night. I've got the house to myself for the night and you can come over whenever you want. I'll be here."

'Whenever he wanted' apparently translated to right now for Kevin because she had only just finished putting in the dishwasher the tupperware from the leftovers she'd heated up for dinner. Spencer would be appalled his grandmother was eating leftovers and hadn't insisted the help made her a new meal, not to mention how she had put the dishes in the dishwasher herself. Laura heard the persistent vibration of her cell phone and wiped her hands on a dishtowel, checking it even though she had a pretty good idea who it was calling. Sure enough it was a text from Kevin telling her the launch was scheduled to arrive in five minutes and he'd get the rest of the way there himself.

Impressive, Laura thought to herself, considering he had first spoken to her about coming over twenty minutes ago and the launch ride from Port Charles to Spoon Island was fifteen minutes. Whatever he had to say to her that he couldn't say over the phone must be important.

Laura attempted to keep herself from inexplicably worrying about Kevin and cleaned up the kitchen - why leave it for the Wyndemere staff to clean when she could just as easily clean it herself, and unfortunately despite her best efforts to instill those same values in her grandson Spencer didn't agree with her on that point - when there was a knock at the door. She wiped her hands again on a dishtowel and went to open the front door of the mansion. Kevin Collins stood in front of her and for the very first time that she could remember, he looked unsure. He was looking at _her_ and he looked unsure.

She immediately motioned for him to come inside. She didn't know when Nikolas was going to be home and if she was being perfectly honest being all alone at Wyndemere frightened her sometimes, even with the guards. Maybe if Kevin haven't eaten she could convince him to stay for awhile and she could fix him something. They could watch a movie after or just talk, it didn't matter to her. She just liked spending time with him. She liked spending time with him very much.

"You sounded serious on the phone," she murmured. "You, um, Kevin, we're friends, aren't we? You'd tell me if something was bothering you? You've been helping me so much with my troubles, I don't want this friendship to be one-sided." Laura took a few steps forward to put her hand on his arm, her eyes widening when she just thought of something. "Oh, Kevin, your daughter...Christina? Did something happen to her? Did Lucy call you and tell you something?"

Kevin looked into Laura's bright blue eyes filled with nothing but concern for his daughter, and his heart dropped to the lowest pit of his stomach when all he could see in her face was how honestly _worried_ she looked for him. He hadn't approached this correctly at all. He'd scared her, made her think something was wrong when all he wanted to do was ask her to have dinner with him. No wonder Mac had taken it upon himself to schedule dates for him. Laura looked at him expectantly, those bright blue eyes just oozing concern, and if he was forced to be honest the only reason he wasn't taking her in his arms and kissing all her hurts and doubts away was that it would be incredibly inappropriate under the circumstances and would drastically reduce his chances of getting a date with her from a cautious maybe to a definitive nil and nada. "Oh, Laura, no, no, Christina is fine and I'm fine. It's nothing like that. I really didn't intend to frighten you by coming here unexpectedly and not telling you why. I'm so sorry, honestly. There's just something in particular I wanted to ask you and I thought it warranted more of an in-person visit rather than over the phone."

Laura's eyes softened and she motioned for him to follow her into Wyndemere's living room. "Well, now you've got me curious," she admitted. "Feel free to ask me anything, whatever it is that you felt compelled to come out here for."

Kevin followed her into the den but didn't sit down. Those chairs at Wyndemere were awfully comfortable and he was afraid that if he sat down in one he wouldn't be able to get back up, and to be frank he was too nervous to sit. He stared in the bright, caring eyes of a befuddled Laura and hesitated for only a moment before he took her hand and held it between both of his, and without thinking about implications, started to stroke the inside of her palm with his thumb.

He stopped when the logical part of his brain realized that what he was doing was far too intimate a gesture for their relationship as it was now, but if he would have looked closely Kevin would have seen the confusion mired by the flash of disappointment in Laura's eyes when he took his hand away even that slightest amount. "Laura, will you have dinner with me?" he asked quietly, tentatively, after what he felt like was far too long of excruciating silence, but in reality was less than a minute at most. "Not a casual dinner like what we've been doing, either. I - I like spending time with you and I like listening to you. I thought we could talk and learn more about each other. Not talking about Helena or anything to do with her mystery clues. Talking about you, and me, and whatever is happening in our lives that we want to talk about that isn't Helena Cassadine."

It felt far too long to Kevin that she didn't speak and if he had been cognizant of anything but his heart thumping beneath his ribs with nervous energy in a way he couldn't remember it doing since Lucy Kevin would have noticed Laura step closer to him. All of a sudden there she was, close enough that he could smell her perfume, and he had to stop himself from physically reacting to her close proximity and allowing his hands to wander to her hips and pull her into him. He didn't speak or even move and to his amazement Laura's hand lifted up to touch his cheek, and she cocked her head to the left and gave him a soft smile. "Kevin Collins, are you asking me out on a date?"

Kevin swallowed. "Yes. Yes, I am. Was that not clear?"

Laura quickly moved her hand from his cheek and placed it over his mouth before he could say another word, worried that he'd find a way to talk himself out of what had obviously taken him a lot of courage to come over to Wyndemere and do. "No, you were perfectly clear. So I'd like to be clear, too. Yes, Kevin Collins, I'd like to go to dinner with you. It's a date."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Here's hoping the content of this chapter will make you KevLaur fans happy and make up for the delay in getting this posted :-) I have good news for you: this first date chapter was so long that I ultimately made the executive decision to divide it into two parts. Part two is going to pick up exactly where part one leaves off. Just an FYI ;)**

* * *

Laura hadn't had much of a choice, unfortunately. Not that she had very many choices to start with.

Kevin had looked at her like she'd done something to personally offend him when she suggested they meet at the restaurant instead of him coming all the way out to Wyndemere, but this was their first date and she wanted to keep it simple and save him the launch ride. Taking a cab to the restaurant or, worse yet, being driven in a limo rented by Tracy Quartermaine or Sonny Corinthos, would have brought too much attention to herself. Nikolas and Lulu were both out of the question because they would have taken one look at what she was wearing and known she was going on a date. And Laura wasn't ready to tell her children she was going out on a date, at least not yet. Not until she was sure. Nikolas would be okay with it once she told him who she was going out with, but Lulu wouldn't. Laura knew her daughter too well.

So that left Elizabeth to pick her up at the docks and drive her to the MetroCourt.

Elizabeth, thank goodness, hadn't asked questions and had steered them into light-hearted conversation about Cameron's soccer game that weekend, but even hearing about her grandson hadn't calmed Laura's nerves. Hearing about Jake and how he was slowly opening up to Franco about his imprisoned years on Cassadine Island just made her think about how ill-equipped Franco was to be any sort of therapist, and that made her think about Kevin. _Kevin._ Handsome and funny and kind and good - Kevin. Kevin admitted to her during one of their working lunches that he hadn't dated much since his divorce from Lucy but it wasn't like she had been on a date in awhile, either. She supposed it was nice that they were at least starting from the same place behind the eight-ball in that regard. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't be the only one that was nervous.

Laura took what she hoped was a calming breath and stepped into the MetroCourt restaurant and later that evening when she would rewind everything about their date to analyze it she would be hard-pressed to argue against the feeling she got the first time she saw him. Like they were in one of the romantic movies Lulu had liked to watch when she was younger. It seemed like Kevin locked eyes with her from across the room at the same moment she saw him and for the first time the entire day Laura didn't force herself to ignore the fluttering in her chest when she saw him smile.

She gave him a small little wave and by the time she had crossed the floor of the MetroCourt to make it to the table Kevin had already crossed the table to stand beside her chair. She sat down, embarrassed to think she was already blushing, and murmured a soft thank you. Laura couldn't remember the last time a man had pulled out a chair for her. She could count on one hand the number of times over the course of their entire marriage Luke had done that and here Kevin was doing it on their first date. But her mind flashed back to all the times they'd met at The Floating Rib or at Kelly's for lunch over the last six months and whenever they'd had a booth Kevin had always stood up and stepped out of the booth if she arrived last and waited for her to be seated. She hadn't paid too much attention to it at the time. Laura tilted her head to the two glasses of wine. "Were you expecting me not to come?" she teased, laughing when he looked at her. "The wine, Kevin."

Only when she was properly seated did he go back to his side of the table and sit down in his own chair. "I went ahead and ordered us wine so it would be at the table when you got here. Don't worry, I ordered it a few minutes ago and they just brought it out to me. You weren't late." Kevin moved the small glass of red wine closer to her side of the table. "I took an educated guess on what you'd like. Last time when we had lunch here when we talked about Helena you ordered red with your meal."

Laura hoped she didn't look as astonished as she felt when she stared at him. She hadn't even been on this date for five minutes and Kevin was already showing her that he paid attention to little things. "I did, but, but I'm surprised that you remembered. Thank you. _I_ didn't even remember what wine I ordered last time."

Kevin's eyes darted around the room to make sure there was no wait staff or customer in earshot and leaned in close like he intended to share a secret with her. "Red or white, Laura, I had a fifty-fifty chance." He smiled. "Do I get points for getting it right, though? Christina made it clear to me that because this is our first official date I need to be doing things for you that get me brownie points."

"You get one point for having a good memory," she deadpanned with a straight face. He laughed, and hearing him laugh at her joke made her relax. Not enough, but more than she had been. Except now she wondered how many of their lunches and dinners the last couple of weeks he might have counted as unofficial dates because he had made it a point to call this their first _official_ date. "But I don't think I want to spend our date keeping a running tally in my head of what you do and don't get points for, Kevin, if that's okay with you."

Kevin reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. "That's okay with me," he murmured quietly. "That's better than okay. I don't want either of us to pretend to be anything we aren't tonight. I haven't been on a first date in so long that the rules for what's good and what isn't have probably changed." He looked at Laura and held her gaze for a couple of seconds. "I wanted to say this when you first got here, but I didn't get the chance. You...you look beautiful tonight, Laura."

Laura felt herself blushing yet again. She ended up calling Elizabeth that afternoon as an extreme last resort after trying without success for fifteen minutes to choose what to wear for her and Kevin's date that night. (Lulu would have been her automatic first choice but Laura thought it would be best to ease her daughter slowly into the idea of her dating). Elizabeth had come to Wyndemere immediately and had spent the next sixty minutes painstakingly helping Laura go through every item in her closet and put together an outfit, and had even spent ten minutes on jewelry and appropriate shoes. They had talked and Laura had admitted to Elizabeth that she was going out on her first date in months, with a man she had recently gotten close to, and not only was she worried about the date itself because she hadn't done this in a long time but she was very much worried about managing to destroying the friendship that meant more to her than she had previously been willing to admit by trying to move their relationship into something more. Elizabeth had given good advice and pretended not to know that her date was really with Kevin Collins and Laura in turn pretended not to be painfully aware that Elizabeth knew exactly who she had been talking about. It was a mutually-beneficial lie.

"Thank you," she murmured, sipping her wine to save herself from saying something else extra that would inevitably end up proving embarrassing to the both of them. "You clean up nicely yourself. Honestly, Kevin, you look very handsome."

"Hello, I'm Kiki, I'll be your waitress tonight," Kiki said brightly. Laura hadn't even seen her appear at their table. She'd only met Lauren Katherine once or twice in passing (Laura couldn't bring herself to call a grown woman Kiki, and she was well aware of how hypocritical that sounded because her own daughter went by Lulu) but that had been enough for her to know there were many personality traits of the young woman that reminded her of Maxie, and that was enough to get her to pick up her wine glass again and take a second sip. Laura wasn't sure if Kevin had ever actually met her before and she'd let him form his own opinions. "Can I get you two something to drink?"

Laura glanced across the table at her date and smiled, turning the slightest bit to face the waitress. "I'm not going to answer for Kevin, but since we already have wine, I think I'll just have water, thanks."

Kiki waited until Kevin gave a small nod to indicate that he'd have the same. She promised to return shortly with their drinks and menus and she didn't lie; Laura and Kevin had menus in their hands within the next five minutes. Kiki stalled for a couple of seconds at their table and Laura finally looked up. The waitress had the decency to blush and look slightly abashed and embarrassed. "This table isn't even in the section I'm supposed to cover, but I told Carly and Olivia that I'd be happy to cover your table and be your waitress tonight because I have no real emotional attachment to either of you and I won't bother you. Not when you're on your first date." Kiki snuck a glance at Kevin. "No offense about not being attached. Carly and Olivia are both related to Laura and I hardly know you."

Laura snuck a glance in Kevin's direction to see if that last comment by Kiki had insulted him and, satisfied that he either hadn't heard her or for whatever reason was okay with a random twentysomething waitress commenting on the fact that it was their first date (which didn't correlate with the man that was so unsure of himself and worried when he'd asked her out, but she could add that to the pile of things to analyze later), raised an eyebrow at Kiki. "Why would you assume Kevin and I are on a date? We've eaten meals here before. Dinner, even."

To Laura's mortification, Kiki _laughed_ and tucked her order pad into the waistband of her uniform so she could tick the points off her fingers. **Points** , more than one. "The fact that you answered my simple statement with defensive questions, for starters. Also because he ordered you wine so it would be at the table and that he specifically requested this table secluded from the high-traffic areas. And that - " she looked Laura up and down in an embarrassingly obvious way that reminded her of Lulu. "- _**that**_ is a first date outfit."

Kevin snapped his menu closed just then, in such a way it had taken Laura the last month to understand it meant he was annoyed, or very close to getting annoyed. "Kiki, yes? I'm sorry, but we're not ready to order yet so if you would be so kind as to give us a few minutes…?" He leaned in towards Laura as soon as Kiki walked away. "She really doesn't want to get a good tip, does she?"

Laura forced herself to smile at Kevin's sincere and wonderful attempt to diffuse the situation. It left her feeling exposed emotionally that people they didn't even know that well thought they were allowed to have opinions on her and Kevin's date, and if she felt that way she could only imagine that Kevin felt it too. Or maybe men didn't think about those kinds of things the same way women did. "For someone that isn't emotionally attached to you and me she certainly doesn't have a problem talking to us about why she thinks we're on a date."

"But we are on a date."

"Of course we are," she responded automatically, looking at him in surprise over her menu. Laura didn't want him to think that she wasn't taking their first-date status seriously, just that she wanted to keep it between the two of them for as long as they could. She thought that was what he wanted, too. "She doesn't need to know we are, that's all I meant. The last thing I need is for Olivia to find out and tell Dante, and then Dante will tell Lulu." She realized too late how bad that must have sounded to him and winced. "Please don't take that to mean I'm embarrassed to be on a date with you, Kevin, because I'm not. I promise you I'm not. It's just - Lulu, more so than Nikolas, seems to have a problem with the idea of me dating, so I didn't tell her. Yet. But I will. Kevin, I promise you I will." Laura reached for his hand. "And I am perfectly aware how awful that makes me sound because you told Christina and every time I've heard you talk about her you always talked about how close you and Christina and Lucy were as a family unit, so I'm sure she's got something to say about this -"

"Were close," Kevin automatically said, the first thing that came to his mind to stop Laura from working herself into feeling worse about her current chain of thought than she already did. "I didn't tell Christina. She figured it out when I FaceTimed her and held up two options and asked her which tie went better with this shirt. She sounded happy that I was going on a date, and she was very happy that it was with you, for what it's worth."

Laura didn't have an opportunity to comment on that because the waitress came back to their table, pen and order pad in hand. They ordered their meals and were again left alone. And for the second time in less than ten minutes Kiki's presence at the table seemed as though it ruined the mood. Laura tried her best to get their conversation back on track - away from other people's opinions, more than definitely, people that weren't related to them, at least - and asked Kevin to tell her something interesting that happened to him at work in the past week that wouldn't interfere with patient-therapist confidentiality. Something Laura knew Kevin took very seriously, as he should.

Kevin was three-fourths of the way through a story that was really very funny and in any other circumstance would have made her laugh when she set down her water glass and sighed. "This is dumb of us, isn't it, Kevin?"

He was silent for a long time and she mentally backtracked and would have smacked herself in the forehead if she wasn't in public because she had not only interrupted his story when she had been the one to ask him to tell her one but she had quite possibly insinuated to him she thought their date was stupid. For heaven's sake, she was fifty-four, not seventeen, so why was she acting like she'd never been on a date before? She knew she'd be a little slow on the uptake when it came to dating again after so long but she thought she'd be doing a lot better than this.

"I thought our date was going fine," he murmured, and Laura hated herself at that moment for hurting him, because she could hear it in his voice that she had. "Granted, the food hasn't gotten here yet and our waitress is a little - excited, but we did just order -"

Laura held up her hand in a time-out gesture. "I didn't mean our date wasn't going well," she hurriedly assured him. "I'm... I'm having a great time with you, Kevin. Despite the fact the majority of our conversations the last six months revolved around Helena Cassadine and everything horrible that's ever happened to me in my life, I - always have a good time when I'm with you," she murmured, giving him a soft smile. "That's the one thing about tonight I'm sure of."

Kevin's eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement and he opened his mouth to say something, evidently thought better of it, and started over. "Christina gave me pointers on a lot of things but not this, so you're going to have to help me out. Explain the issue to me?"

She tried to make him understand what she was feeling and how she was feeling, she really did, but it was hard enough to try and explain it to him considering _she_ didn't even know what it was exactly she was feeling. Or why she was feeling it or how to start this date over so she could fix it and have Kevin be on a date with the woman he had asked out and not this bumbling idiot that let a grown adult named Kiki get to her. Why was it that after forming half a year's worth of friendship with this kind, sweet, wonderful man that understood her and didn't run away at the mess that the Cassadines had made of her life, why was she getting so discombobulated at the word and idea of a date that she could hardly carry on a normal conversation with him? "It's just...we're both adults, aren't we?"

"I would certainly hope so, yes."

Laura nodded excitedly. "We are. Both of us are fully grown adults. We've both been married and divorced, we each have children, for heaven's sake I have five grandchildren and I'm sure you'll have one or two of your own in a few years. I'd like to think we've become really good friends these last six months and there's no reason in the world that just because you came all the way to Spoon Island to ask me out on a date and I said yes, there's no reason why all of a sudden it's awkward and we can't talk to each other. That doesn't make sense to me at all."

Kevin took a deep breath, clasped his hands in front of him and looked at her intently. "This is very important, Laura, so I need you to listen to me and understand. There is no universe, alternate or otherwise, where I would be a grandparent to two children or even one child in a few years. That's just not going to happen. I forbid it. Christina is not allowed to be doing anything in Paris that would lead to her having children. I'm her father, she knows that's our rule."

"Kevin, you have a daughter. She's going to get married someday and have children of her own. That's how life works, unfortunately."

Kevin took a moderately-sized gulp of wine and Laura had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud at the scared look that crossed over his face. "Lulu and Lucky and Nikolas are all in their thirties, if I'm right, so it's fine for them to have children. Perfectly acceptable. Christina, on the other hand, is twenty-four. She's having the time of her life in France and I do not want her to get any ideas about settling down and having babies with the first man that comes along. Lucy's not ready to have grandchildren and neither am I."

Laura was saved from thinking up a way to tactfully remind Kevin that she was two years younger than him and not that much older than Lucy when their food showed up at the table. Their two plates were taken off the tray and placed in front of Laura and Kevin, respectively. Kevin waited until Kiki was no longer in their line of vision before switching the plates so they could each have what they'd actually ordered.

Minutes of uncomfortable silence stretched awkwardly between them, Laura concentrating on her food and Kevin concentrating on not being caught sneaking concerned glances at Laura every so often, until Kevin finally set his fork down and hesitantly touched Laura's hand to get her to do the same. "Laura," he whispered. "Please, will you look at me for a minute?"

"I'm sorry," she blurted out before he could get in another word. "I didn't mean to make you think I thought our date was dumb. I just think it's stupid that we're both nervous. Or, I am, at least. I don't know about you."

It surprised her that Kevin didn't let go of her hand, but she didn't pull away. His hand felt nice and strong around hers. "I haven't told you very much about why my marriage ended, have I?" he murmured quietly. "Maybe I'll tell you more one day but suffice to say you're the first woman I've been out on a date with since Lucy and I split up. The first woman that was up to me, at least, I should add that amendum. Mac Scorpio - you know Mac, I think - tried to set me up on blind dates and if I'm being completely honest, none of them went well at all."

"I'm the first woman you've asked out since your divorce?" Laura didn't trust her voice to speak in more than a whisper. She hadn't expected him to admit that to her. It felt - kind of sweet, if she was being honest. She wanted to be honest with herself. She liked Kevin. She liked him very much. And from what she could tell, despite how badly their date had gone so far, he liked her too. "Kevin, really?"

There it was, that fluttering in her chest again. She liked him a lot.

He nodded. "Mac, to his credit, set me up with very nice women that he thought were my type and I would be interested in but it was too soon after Lucy and I signed our divorce papers and I wasn't ready. I didn't want to become the kind of man that tried to get past the pain of my marriage ending by dating a different woman every week."

"You thought it would be better to drown yourself in your work, instead." The look of surprise on Kevin's face that she'd said that out loud was real and Laura immediately looked down. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have -"

Neither of them wanted to break the moment and mention it when Kevin began stroking the inside of her palm with his thumb, slow and methodical circles. "You're not the first person to tell me that, Laura, don't worry. Mac and Christina did too. Christina kept telling me how much she worried about me. I'll be the first to admit that she was right. I did bury myself in my work to stop myself from getting hurt. It worked for a few months." She saw clearly the pain in his eyes that was still there, even three years later, when he spoke of his marriage and divorce. An uncontrollable feeling of protectiveness surged through her and Laura couldn't understand what Lucy had been thinking and what a kind and decent man she had willingly given up. "Those women Mac set me up on dates with, none of them ever meant anything to me. I couldn't in good conscience lead them on when I knew before the date even started that none of them would ever get a second date unless Mac set it up. I didn't want to disappoint them."

"They were blind dates, Kevin," she told him, quietly. "I don't think anyone ever goes into a blind date expecting it to turn into anything serious. You couldn't have disappointed those women if you tried."

Laura heard the regret in Kevin's voice for being thrust into dating situations he wasn't ready. But what she felt also, what disappointed her, was the loss of warmth when he removed his hand from hers and picked up his fork to start eating again. Or what was what she had figured out over the last six months was one of his polite signals that he wanted to discontinue this line of conversation. She followed his lead, going back to her own meal, and was in the middle of twisting a first-date-size approved bite of pasta onto her fork when her silent thoughts were interrupted by his soft voice. He was looking at her in such a way that he hadn't before in all the time she'd known him and when she heard his gentle and tender tone, one he must have reserved solely for Lucy in the past, she very much hoped he wasn't able to see the blush that was quickly forming. "I would, however, be very hurt if I disappointed you."

Laura set her fork down and took another sip of wine to give her suddenly-racing heart and mind some seconds to collect themselves and a chance for her now-hopelessly muddled brain to form words. Form words that would hopefully scramble themselves into a sentence that would make sense. "I don't think you'll disappoint me, Kevin Collins," she whispered. "I do think, and you can tell me if you disagree, but I think we're both putting too much pressure on ourselves calling it a date. Maybe we should throw that word out."

A slightly confused expression was her immediate response and Laura couldn't figure it out if he was amused by her suggestion or offended. "I asked you if you wanted to have dinner with me, you said yes, I made reservations, and I'm going to be the one paying when the check comes. What do you have in mind to call this if it isn't a date?"

"Dinner?" she suggested meekly. She wasn't sure whether he was happy with her or not. She prided herself on being able to read Kevin's fairly straightforward nonverbal cues - Laura realized now that she was the first woman in a long time to be close enough to him, even in a friendship, to be able to read him at all - but at that moment she couldn't. "Two people that care about each other having dinner."

"You and Luke Spencer having dinner to talk about Lucky and Lulu would match the description of what you just said but I don't particularly care to think about you going on a date with your ex-husband," Kevin counter-matched her argument, but with a crooked smile that she unexpectedly found charming. "'Date' is much quicker to say, don't you think?"

"Yes," she admitted, choosing her next words slowly, mentally filing away Kevin's split-second display of jealousy where Luke was concerned. She'd think about that later. "I just think the pressure and everything that comes with the word date is making us nervous."

Kevin let his finger trail around the rim of his wine glass. "And if this 'two people that care about each other having dinner' scenario you had in mind perhaps ended our evening with me kissing you, would that not be acceptable?"

"Oh, Kevin," Laura murmured, guilt washing over her when she realized how it must sound to him: she was shooting him down. He had opened up to her more in the last ten minutes about his heartbreak and his state of mind post-divorce than he had in the last six months overall and her reaction had been to take the label of date off their date because it made her nervous. Why wasn't she better at this? "That would be - I'd like that very much."

The way he instantaneously reached for her hand yet again and the way his eyes looked at her with so much unchecked emotion made Laura's heart start to flutter again and there was a minute of comfortable silence until he (reluctantly, she noted with intense satisfaction) let go. Kiki came by their table to ask them if they wanted anything else and Kevin must have said something to her because the waitress stammered and took a step back, walking away quickly only to be replaced by another waitress filling their water glasses. Laura hardly noticed.

She did notice how, when they decided not call their first date a 'date', that their 'two people that care about each other having dinner' evening got better. It was like that gave them the permission they didn't know they needed to be themselves and they were able to slip seamlessly back into the friendship that had sustained them for the last six months and they could be fully present and comfortable with each other without worrying about what would happen next or what it meant. Kevin asked about Nikolas and Lulu and all of her grandchildren and she was able to see first-hand how deeply his eyes sparkled when she asked about Christina. Laura silently thanked Lucy for allowing Kevin to remain an important part of his daughter's life even after the marriage had ended. The two traded stories about their children for what seemed to be hours.

At some point during their dinner Kevin had cut a small portion of his steak and tucked it into the corner of her plate and she reciprocated by twirling the last bite of pasta onto her fork and handing it to him. He casually remarked that the next time they had dinner he was ordering whatever she had because it tasted fantastic and the way his eyes lit up like he'd won the lottery when Laura assured him that absolutely they'd have dinner again confirmed to her he'd known exactly what he had said. Laura wasn't at all surprised any longer to be just as thrilled at the idea of a second date as he was.

They allowed themselves a fifteen-minute window of the evening to discuss Helena Cassadine and her mysterious clues - Helena, for all her talk of how she detested all of the Spencers and aimed to make them miserable, had been what had brought them together in the first place - but Kevin changed the subject when he saw that the more they talked, the more upset Laura became. Laura was horrified to find herself blinking back tears, but unspeakably grateful he knew her so well and was considerate enough to change the conversation. Luke wouldn't have done so.

Their wine glasses long since empty, Laura and Kevin found themselves talking about everything they could think of that interested them that didn't have to do with Helena Cassadine or their respective children. Luke, Lucy and Scotty were purposefully avoided in conversation, and Laura made a note to herself not to ask Kevin about Lucy. Laura knew the basics of what Lucy had done to Kevin - cheated on him with Scotty and it was made public at the Nurses' Ball - but as far as a backstory and why that made Kevin retreat into himself for so long, she wasn't about to ask. If Kevin wanted her to know he'd tell her in his own time. Laura knew all about the value of trust and emotional safe spaces. She was actively annoyed when their waitress returned and interrupted their little first-date (first date, she could proudly call it that now) bubble she and Kevin had cocooned themselves in, and was totally surprised to look up and see her daughter's mother-in-law, and not Kiki.

"Hi, Olivia?" Laura said slowly, glancing at Kevin in mild amusement. Had he sent the younger waitress away for an unidentified but ultimately innocuous reason? Kiki hadn't been **that** irritating. She'd lived through much worse with Lulu's friendship with Maxie, after all. "Can we help you?"

"Carly sent me to see if the two of you wanted coffee or something for dessert or Kevin, did you just want the check? I'll be handling the rest of your meal. The cannoli are Laura's favorite," she told Kevin. "Just so you know. For future reference on your next date."

"Olivia…" Laura warned.

Kevin either didn't mind or didn't seem to hear her and only when Laura shook her head no to the unasked question in his eyes did he tell Olivia no thank you, just the check. Olivia returned with the check and waited patiently until Kevin was occupied with retrieving his credit card from his wallet and determining a proper tip. While he was focused on his task Olivia spoke to Laura in hushed tones. "Kiki's shift ended forty-five minutes ago. You and Kevin have been sitting here for two and a half hours, we've been keeping track. I'd say that qualifies as a fantastic date by first date standards."

Laura blew out a little puff of air of frustration at the woman with whom she shared a grandson. She wouldn't lie, Rocco Falconeri was the cutest two year old she'd ever had the pleasure of knowing. Next only to Spencer, Cameron, Jake and Aiden when they were small. "I will give to you my next two babysitting days with Rocco if you leave us alone right now."

Olivia smirked at Laura when she took Kevin's credit card. "Deal."

She returned moments later with the card as well as Kevin's copy of the receipt and nonchalantly dropped a half-folded slip of paper into Laura's lap. Laura scanned the note while Kevin was getting his wallet back in order and stuffed the paper in her purse. Well, of all the nerve. Tomorrow she would text Olivia and take back her babysitting days with Rocco.

"Laura? Is everything okay?" Kevin's quiet voice broke through her internal plotting on how best to get back at the other woman. His normally animated eyes showed concern. "I know because you've told me that Olivia is Dante's mother and she was talking to you while I was settling the check. There's nothing wrong with Lulu or Rocco, I hope?"

It scared Laura half to death, almost to the point of wanting to tell him this wouldn't work and she couldn't possibly date him and they should just stay friends, to know that Kevin was so in-tune with her emotionally and cared about not only her but her children and grandchildren as well. But she would try. She was tired of shutting herself off from romance, much like Kevin had, and if she opened herself up to the possibility she had a sneaking suspicion Kevin would be worth it. "Everyone is fine, thanks," she murmured. "You're a good man, Kevin." Then she laughed. "Olivia was just telling me that we seem to have outlasted our waitress."

Kevin actually laughed. "I was wondering what happened to her." When he reached across the table to take Laura's hand, the face of his watch came into his line of vision and he did a double-take and looked at Laura with an amused expression. "Do you know it's a quarter of ten now?"

For the first time all night Laura looked around and saw for herself that Olivia had been right, they were one of only two or three tables that were still occupied in the entire restaurant, which was probably how Olivia had time to keep track of how long she and Kevin had been there. And they were the only ones of the three that were in a tucked-away corner that fairly screamed date. "I can't even remember the last time I lost track of time like that," Laura admitted to him honestly. She pulled her phone out of her purse and started to dial the number for the launch service. Nikolas had worked it out when she had moved into the castle to where the launch to and from Wyndemere was available to her twenty-four/seven, but she couldn't remember having to use it outside of regular hours before. Until now. "I - I had a good time tonight, Kevin," she whispered, irrationally afraid Olivia would magically be there to eavesdrop if she spoke any louder. "I want to do this again if you do."

"Two people who care about each other having dinner?" he echoed her carefully spoken words from earlier. "And I can't have you going back to Wyndemere at this hour by yourself, Laura. It's late and it's dark. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to you on the way to the launch and I don't think Nikolas or Lulu or Lucky would take kindly to it, either."

Laura recognized Kevin's good intentions and chose to accept his comments in the manner which they were intended and that it wasn't yet another example of a man thinking he knew what was best for her just because he was a man. Still she couldn't resist giving him a hard time. He'd done the same to her many times; she'd discovered over the course of their friendship that he was competitive almost to a fault about playing games. "From here to the docks," she smiled in feigned disbelief. "You do know I'm the same woman that lived on the run with my husband for years, don't you?"

"The docks are dangerous, especially at night. Especially the docks in Port Charles," he said seriously. "I'd like to see you home, Laura, please."

Laura slipped her phone back into her purse and took one final sip of water. "Okay, okay, that was my token, I'm an independent woman protest, but - yes, I'd like you to take me home." She impulsively reached for his hand and curled her fingers around his before she even had a chance to lose the courage she'd just recently stored up. "When I said a few minutes ago that I'd like to do this again if you did, and you, very politely, I might add, threw my 'two people who care about each other having dinner' line in my face, you got it wrong and I didn't correct you. I'd like to do that now." She took a breath and stared unblinking into his eyes. "I'd like us to go on another date, Kevin."

The immediate and honest surprise she got from Kevin in his eyes that morphed into a smile, the kind of smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle and her heart do that weird flip-flopping thing it had been doing all evening when he smiled at her, that smile alleviated the pressure in her chest like letting air slowly out of a tire and told her she had said the right thing. That she _did_ the right thing. That she does want to go out on more and more dates with this wonderful man, that she wants to see where this maybe - relationship could go if she stopped being scared and gave Kevin an honest chance.

"So you're back to calling it a date," he murmured slowly. "Do you think you could give me a copy of the rules next time?" he grinned. They were still holding hands. He tried not to think about Olivia more than likely watching them. He knew she'd said something to Laura about them being on a date that Laura hadn't liked.

She was sure of her answer. "Would two people that care about each other having dinner want to kiss each other at the end of the night?"

Kevin's grip tightened momentarily on her hand and he had to concentrate hard to hold back the urge to cradle her face in between his hands and kiss her right then and there in the middle of the MetroCourt. Something he didn't think she'd appreciate much if her reaction to Olivia and Kiki had been any indication. "No, I don't suppose they would," he agreed, once his mouth wasn't dry and he could speak and words would actually come out of his mouth. "Good choice calling this a date, then."

"I figured you'd think so," she whispered. She made herself let go of his hand to pick up her purse and it made her happy to see the look on his face and know that he wasn't any happier about the only-two-seconds-long loss of physical contact than she was. She stood up from her chair and Kevin did the same. "I'm still waiting for you to ask me for that second date, you know."

"Ah, but as you know I'm a gentleman and no gentleman asks a lady for a second date until he sees her home safely, no matter how much he may want to." Kevin figured after being out of the dating game for such a long time he would be out of practice with flirting, too, but he had the pleasure of watching Laura duck to avoid meeting his gaze and even still he saw her blush. It was surprisingly confidence-building and he hoped her reaction meant he was doing okay at this. "If I had to hazard a guess would it be a safe bet to say you'd say yes?"

Laura barely was able to suppress the crazy urge to laugh and at the last minute disguised it as a cough instead. "Did you consult a rules of dating book from the fifties before you asked me out?" He didn't respond and she hastened to assure him she was only teasing. Her mind flashed to Luke and to Scotty and even to the one whom she never allowed herself to think about, lest she fall down that hell-hole of a mind-trap again, Stavros. "Not that that's a bad thing," she said quietly. "It's not a bad thing at all."

Slowly and deliberately, almost as if he was doing it on purpose to prove a point, Kevin held the elevator door open for her and also the door to the MetroCourt lobby as they walked hand-in-hand to his car. "People say old-fashioned like it's a negative concept and I don't think it is. It shouldn't be. I just think everyone deserves to be treated with respect and common courtesy -"

"Even Helena Cassadine?"

Kevin paused to give that the consideration it deserved. "Well, considering that the Cassadines have tortured you and your family most of your adult life and Helena always seems to be the instigator of a nefarious plot to hurt you or the people that are important to you, which, by the way, I'm convinced you still haven't told me everything about the Cassadines, then no, I wouldn't think she deserves your respect or mine." Kevin hurried to open the passenger-side door of his car for Laura. "But you and I both know I wasn't talking about Helena Cassadine, Laura. We were talking about what I think being old fashioned means and if I can be so bold to say this without offending you, I don't think you're used to it."

Laura purposefully stared out the window for the first mile at the road passing them by so Kevin wouldn't see the tears that had pooled in her eyes and the tears that were trickling down her cheeks. She wasn't offended. She was proud of him that he felt secure enough in their friendship and close enough to her to say what he said. But the precise fact that he had said it meant he understood her far better than she ever anticipated and that was something that scared her to her very core. Especially now that they were in the process of transitioning from friends to a romantic relationship. "You're right," was all she said. "You're new to me in a lot of ways, Kevin. But I am trying and if you don't mind, I'd rather not go down this particular path of conversation. At least not on a first date, please."

Kevin's right hand moved from the steering wheel to her knee where it rested for a minute or two in silent apology and she belatedly realized with sadness that her words must have sounded sharper than she intended. "I apologize for overstepping," he said quietly. "You're absolutely right. That's not a first date conversation, or an ever conversation at the rate I'm going."

She murmured right away that it was all right (mostly because she had put that guilty look on his face she was seeing right now and she wanted it to go away immediately), that both of them had significant ex-lovers in their pasts (three in her case, one in his, and that wasn't even getting into the minefield that was her first ex-husband sleeping with his then-wife to destroy his marriage) they needed to talk to each other about but that could be shelved for later conversations when they were more comfortable with their new situation. Kevin was smart enough to not ask what exactly their new situation was, she thought wryly, he hadn't gone to school all those years for nothing, and the remainder of their drive to the docks was comfortable and quiet.

But it was a silence she didn't mind.

At one point when they were at a red light Laura reached across the middle console to take his hand and he smiled at her and entwined his fingers with hers until the light turned green, and that was enough for her. She relaxed. Kevin wasn't angry with her and the conversation of their pasts was best left for sometime in the future. The implication hung in the air that they had a future to look forward to. She couldn't wait for their second date.


	4. Chapter 4

The launch to Wyndemere was just pulling up to the edge of the docks as Kevin and Laura were walking up, almost like he planned it that way. And, if Kevin had even rudimentary knowledge of how the launches worked, she suspected he would have planned it that way. He looked at her and he didn't have to say a word and she knew he had every intention of staying true to his promise and accompanying her back to Wyndemere. Kevin's hands skimming her waist as she stepped onto the launch caused her to pause momentarily at the unfamiliar sensation of a man touching her that intimately but far too soon for her liking the moment was gone and he was on the boat, too, reaching for her hand and finding them two seats. Laura stayed quiet and didn't say anything for fear that he'd get uncomfortable and stop touching her. Kevin becoming more comfortable touching her the longer their date went on, and she becoming more comfortable with the idea that she liked the physical contact of him touching her, it was something she'd have to think about. All she knew was that it was definitely something she welcomed.

Something else that she welcomed, even though it had to be in the first chapter if not the first line of that from-the-fifties dating manual he'd read, was that when she shivered for the first time due to the drop in temperature since the last time she'd been outside, Kevin enveloped her in his strong arms and soon enough she felt his jacket drape over her shoulders.

"You're going to freeze," she attempted to protest. New York at night on a night like this one was no joke. But he insisted and she stopped protesting. It was wonderful, actually, to be taken care of. And this was the first time in all the time she'd known him that he had held her in any sort of way that could be construed as romantic by an outside observer, and - if this was what being held by Kevin Collins felt like, she could get used to this, definitely. She might even start inventing reasons for him to hold her.

Hm. It was entirely possible that the unfamiliar and overwhelming sensation at being wrapped in Kevin's arms could very well be doing fuzzy things to her brain, but if she had been under oath Laura would have sworn to it that he pressed a fast, feather-light kiss to the top of her head. "Nah. The ride to Wyndemere is only fifteen minutes and no one gets hypothermia in fifteen minutes."

Laura laughed out loud. "Shut up, you're the one with the medical degree and even I know that's not true. But I could throw you overboard to test your theory, if you'd rather."

Kevin didn't reply and the stubborn and competitive streak streak inside Laura made her internally pump her fist in victory, knowing that she'd won. He didn't say anything when she moved just enough in his embrace to where her back was pressed firm against his chest, pulling his jacket even more around her, and she didn't say anything when his immediate action to her still being cold was to pull her into him even closer. There was a large part of her brain telling her that if they tried to talk about what was happening between them the happy post-date bubble they were in would pop and disappear.

So when she unconsciously shivered again and he pressed a soft kiss to her cheek and tightened his arms around her, neither of them mentioned it. She closed her eyes and let him hold her.

"Kevin?" Laura murmured after a long stretch of companionable silence. Normally she would be reaching for her phone to check her messages after being unavailable for so many hours to make sure Lulu hadn't tried to get in touch with her, but she didn't care. She was happy to be here with Kevin, just like this. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. You can ask me anything, Laura, you know that. God knows I've asked you enough questions over the last six months."

"That's business, Kevin, that's different." She steadied herself for courage and blurted it out, hoping she wasn't going to blow it. "Why didn't we do this sooner? Go on a date, I mean. You looked so afraid when you came to Wyndemere to ask me out, like you were convinced before you even asked that I'd say no. I - I did think it was adorable, don't get me wrong, and you definitely get points for dramatic effect and putting in effort, but I'm really not worth getting that nervous over, Kevin. Did Lucy hurt you that badly?"

Kevin expertly sidestepped the references to Laura's lack of self-esteem and also the last-minute reference to Lucy. It wasn't appropriate for him to talk about how hurt he had been when Lucy left him, how the first overwhelming betrayal and anger eventually gave way to a month-long haze where he'd barely left his apartment and hardly talked to anyone that wasn't Mac, his daughter, or his lawyer. Lucy had emotionally checked out of their marriage and the little family they had built long before he'd been forced to admit defeat and file divorce papers. "That was part of it," he quietly admitted. Laura stayed perfectly still and her fingers curled around his in silent support when she felt him hold her tighter and heard his usually-steady voice catch. "I knew you weren't ready and neither was I. Laura, it took me a long time to come to terms with the notion that you were becoming - not just becoming, already were - such a big part of my life, and how the best non-working part of my day was seeing you or talking to you on the phone. Meeting you for lunches or dinners or even bringing you coffee. The last thing I ever wanted to do was jeopardize our working relationship **and** our friendship for the miniscule chance that you might -"

When she was finally able to control her emotions enough to answer him her voice was full of regret for all the time they'd wasted and also tinged with heavy disappointment at the thought that Kevin had spent the last three weeks thinking his chance with her was so small. " - like you the same way you liked me?"

"Yes," he responded simply. "I knew better. If my marriage taught me anything it taught me not to presume. No matter how much I've enjoyed your company over the last six months I wasn't about to ruin a wonderful friendship over something that had only a miniscule chance of happening. Elizabeth worked it out somehow when I started going down to the ER and asked her so many questions about you and she told me to go for it and ask you out -"

Laura held up her hand in a time-out gesture. She didn't know whether to be incredulous, embarrassed, or the tiniest bit impressed at Elizabeth's audacity. Maybe a little bit of all three. And sad for Kevin that he had been so afraid to ask her out on a date. "Elizabeth knows about this? My former daughter-in-law Elizabeth?"

"Oh, no, she doesn't know that we're on a date tonight. Believe you me, Laura, I made sure to keep that to myself unless we wanted our business to be all over Port Charles before the evening was over. She just knows about how I felt about you - **feel** about you - and in our conversations she might have intimated to me that you felt the same way, and -"

She wasn't facing him, so he wouldn't be able to see the hint of an amused smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. "And that's the day that you called me and came to Wyndemere to ask me out?"

Kevin's mouth hovered close to her ear and Laura had to work hard to fight the overwhelming urge to snuggle up closer to him because they were on a launch ride boat to her home - with other people. Well, one other person whose sole job it was to control the boat and pay attention to driving and not the passengers, but he worked for Nikolas. Word of snuggling could get back to him. "No. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you that it took me three weeks from the day Elizabeth talked to me to work up the courage to make the ride out here. To work it out for myself that the possibility of a relationship with you was worth it." He was quiet for a minute. "I thought about you a lot those three weeks, if it helps."

Laura was so scared that by being wrapped up in his arms like this there was no way he wouldn't be able to hear her heart thumping like a jackrabbit in her chest or how she inexplicably wanted to cry. "And?"

His voice was so unbelievably gentle and tender that she had to blink a couple of times to make sure she didn't. "We're here, aren't we?"

"Yes, I suppose we are," she whispered. "Just so you know, Kevin, all those reasons you just said about being scared and how much our friendship means to you and how to didn't want to risk it, you aren't the only one that's scared. You are...the very best friend I've had in a long time, Kevin Collins, and I didn't want to lose that. Lose you. I still don't. But - I think I like more where we are right now. I like the idea of dating you. It doesn't scare me anymore like I thought it would."

This time, this time she was sure she felt it, his mouth pressing a gentle kiss to her hair. Maybe. Maybe she was projecting because she wanted him to kiss her. God, did she want that, and she hoped with all of her heart that he knew it too. Laura hoped he wasn't spending time worrying about what her reaction would be if he kissed her. She'd told him at dinner it was within her first date rules for him to kiss her if he wanted to, hadn't she? She prayed silently that it wouldn't take him three weeks to work up the nerve to kiss her, like it apparently had to ask her out even after Elizabeth had all but pushed him in her direction, according to what Kevin had said. And Kevin had no reason to lie. She and Elizabeth were going to have a sit-down talk about that one.

She was so lost in her thoughts and daydreams of Kevin kissing her that she almost missed Kevin's usually-confident voice sounding not so confident when he asked her if this meant she was his girlfriend, since they were no longer just friends. Laura understood right away what he wasn't saying out loud, that Kevin had no intention of dating her casually just to date her. They were already too important to each other for that and they weren't kids anymore, either of them. He wanted to be in a relationship with her and she was slowly but surely coming to the realization that she wanted that too.

"Not right now," she whispered. He had been completely and unflinchingly honest with her and deserved no less than the same in return. "I don't think I'm ready for that word yet, Kevin, it's our first date. It's been a long time since I've been allowed to be someone that wasn't Luke's wife. For that matter it's been even longer since you've been with a woman that wasn't Lucy Coe. I think maybe we should hold off on labels like that until we've been dating for awhile." She squeezed his upper arms and smiled. "Oh, and it doesn't matter to me where we go for our second date, but it would be nice if you found somewhere to take me where I didn't feel like people were tracking our every move."

"I haven't asked you for a second date yet, if you wanted to be precise about it. And precision is pretty important in my career so I'm a little bit of a stickler for it."

"Yes, I know that you haven't, but I was just going along with the preconceived notion that you would."

He smirked into her shoulder and reluctantly resisted the urge to admit that privately he thought she was adorable when she got riled up so sometimes he tried to do it on purpose to get a reaction out of her. He liked to think he had learned from what had happened when she'd come to his apartment for Chinese take-out a few weeks ago. (Really, she had been completely unreasonable. All he had done was come up behind her when she was playing solitaire and played a move for her that he honestly thought she hadn't seen, and she'd tossed the rest of the cards down in anger and had glared at him in silence for forty-five seconds. He'd counted.) "That's presumptuous of you, Laura Spencer, don't you think? What if I get home and decide I don't want to go on a second date with you?"

Kevin was rewarded for the second time that night with the super-cute sound of her surprised and thus completely natural laughter. "Oh, so you want to play it like that, Kevin, fine. I'll just say it right now that if you're mean to me I'll say no and I won't tell you what I was going to tell you, either."

Kevin's arms tightened around her and he adjusted the jacket over her shoulders and arms so it kept her warm and rested his chin on the top of her head. "Nope, you tell me what you were going to tell me."

Laura closed her eyes and breathed him in so she could remember everything about how it felt to be so close to him like this when she got back to Wyndemere. She reached for his hand and entwined her fingers with his. "Look how beautiful it is out here at night," she murmured. There was a big part of her that had always loved being outside at nighttime and being able to see the night sky and the moon and the stars. "I'm rarely out this late anymore so I haven't gotten to see this view in awhile. It's even better when you go farther out of the city." She opened her eyes, sighing in contentment. "Look at all the stars, Kevin. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"

There it was again, she was absolutely sure she felt it, the ghost of the sensation of his mouth pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. Except this time his mouth stayed close to her hair for a couple of seconds and it didn't stay there, pressing consecutive blink-and-she-would-have-missed-them, feather-light kisses to the nape of her neck. He stayed in her personal space bubble even when his lips left her skin, his warm breath hot on her ear. "Not in a long time," he murmured. "Not in a long time."

Laura carefully pushed herself forward and out of his arms, staring at him with an amused little smile. Yet there was a hint of hesitancy in her voice when she spoke. "You're not even looking at the sky, Kevin, you're looking at me," she whispered. "Look alive, Collins."

"You're right, I am looking at you," he murmured quietly. His hand hesitated for a moment in mid-air and Laura tracked his movements with watery eyes and unshed tears as he reached out to touch her cheek. "I answered the question you asked. You are beautiful, Laura." A tear trickled down her cheek and Kevin wiped it away with his thumb. He watched her carefully as she swallowed and blinked and he knew without her having to say anything that she was embarrassed to be crying in front of him so he brought his hand back down to his side and smiled ruefully. "Telling you how beautiful you are is on the first page of the from-the-fifties dating manual I consulted before we went to dinner."

"Hey, hey, look at me," she murmured quietly, holding his tie so he wouldn't be able to look away. Her from-the-fifties dating manual comment from earlier had embarrassed him and she didn't want that. She needed to fix it immediately and the first way she knew how to do that was to snuggle closer to him. "You, Kevin Collins, are the nicest man I've met in a long time, probably in my whole life. Please don't ask me to expand on that right now because I'm trying to prove a point and just like you there are things in my life I'm not ready to talk about, especially with you. You - you are kind and sweet and gentle and you care about me and I'd have to be blind not to see all of that. Your approach to romance may be old-fashioned and unfamiliar to me but please don't stop. I like it. I like it very much, Kevin. And I need to you know and believe me when I tell you that I have never, ever once questioned your sincerity in anything that you've said to me."

Kevin's smooth voice was rough with emotion when he answered. "Thank you for saying that," he murmured.

"I do have a question for you and you did say that I could ask you anything." She had come to the conclusion that it was now or never. Laura thought she'd given Kevin more than enough hints, subtle or otherwise, that she wanted him to kiss her but she had been out of the dating game almost as long as he had. Maybe she was doing it wrong. Maybe Kevin was waiting for her permission for them to take that next step that would permanently move them past friendship and maybe he needed her to say the words out loud. Laura played with the end of his tie and looked up at him with the most innocent look she could muster. "The launch is going to arrive at Wyndemere soon. Are you going to take three more weeks to get up the nerve to kiss me?"

Once again her eyes tracked his movements as his hand slowly reached out to lift her chin, tilting her face to meet his. His thumb tenderly ran across her mouth and his eyes were dark with anticipation and something else she couldn't identify. "Do you want me to kiss you?"

Laura growled in frustration. Sometimes he took this old-fashioned thing so far and sometimes she was ninety-nine percent sure he did it on purpose to push her buttons. This was undoubtedly one of those times and she wished she had it in her to tease him like he was teasing her. "Yes, please. Please kiss me, Kevin." she whispered. "Please kiss me."

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and whispered her full name reverently like he was saying a prayer, so soft she could barely hear him, and he said something else under his breath she couldn't make out but it sounded very much like "Thank God". He ran his thumb across her cheek and traced the line of her jaw. His mouth was so close to hers that she could feel his breath. She was annoyed with herself all of a sudden for having garlic bread with her pasta at dinner, but she knew how to kiss and eagerly and instinctively closed her eyes in breathless anticipation and -

\- Kevin's hands dropped away from her face and her eyes were startled open when her purse, which had somehow ended up in her lap and so was in extremely close proximity to her and Kevin both, started to ring. Loudly.

Obnoxiously loudly. To-the-point-where-she-wanted-to-throw-her-purse in the ocean loudly.

"For the love of God, don't answer it." Kevin grunted in frustration, touching his forehead to hers, muttering an expletive Laura was fairly certain he hadn't said in his entire life before now. He watched as she struggled for some time to open her purse and didn't even try to help her and by the time she had her cell phone in her hand it had stopped ringing. His eyes lit up in triumph and he started to cradle her face in his hands again but before he could even lean in to kiss her Laura's phone started to ring again. His voice was gravelly and rough, his breath ragged. "Laura, please…"

"That's my ringtone for Lulu," Laura murmured reluctantly.

"Don't care."

More apologies tumbled from her lips as her phone continued to ring. Kevin looked frustrated and upset. She reached out for the first part of him she could touch, his hands, and pressed her mouth to his knuckles repeatedly. "You'd answer it if it was Lucy or Christina."

Kevin couldn't in good faith argue that point and told her to answer the phone and make sure her daughter and grandchild were safe and okay. Laura had told him during dinner how Dante was in the middle of a big case with the PCPD and for the last couple of weeks Lulu had been home alone during the nights and it was ten-thirty now. He was determined that after the phone call - provided that Lulu and Rocco were fine, of course - he would kiss her. He didn't even have words for how badly he wanted to kiss her. Laura seemed to hesitate before answering almost like she was looking at him for confirmation it was fine for her to take the call and he wasn't legitimately annoyed with her, and as soon as she tried to create distance between them he pulled her back against him and wrapped his arms around her. Kevin could hear the yelling through the phone.

Laura knew within two words from Lulu that her daughter was upset. Yelling in what Luke used to call the pissed-off-Spencer-woman voice, shouting and intermittently sprinkling in some Italian she'd no doubt picked up from Dante, asking her where she was and if she was safe.

"Lulu, Lulu, Lulu, sweetheart, you've got to slow down and tell me what's wrong. Why are you worried about where I am and my safety? Did something happen with the Cassadines or Helena's will? Are you and Rocco safe? Call Dante, tell him to come home and lock all the doors and windows...what, me? I'm on the launch coming back to Wyndemere. Kevin - Dr. Collins and I met up at the MetroCourt to work on uncovering more of Helena's clues...yes, honey, I told you he was helping me with that, remember, and we just lost track of time a little bit, I'm sorry. Yes, he's on the launch riding back with me because it's so late. He insisted on it. Very sweet of him." She brought Kevin's hand to her mouth and pressed a gentle kiss there. "Yes, Lulu, I'll get back to Wyndemere safely, I promise...no, you don't have to stay on the phone with me." Whatever Lulu said next must have upset Laura; Kevin heard the subtle shift in her voice. "I wasn't aware I had to run all of my plans by you first. Lesley Lu, I don't appreciate you using that tone with me. There's no need for you and your brother to tag-team me, I'm a grown woman...last time I checked I was still your mother, Lulu, don't think you're too old for me to ground you...honey, I know, but now you can call Nikolas and tell him I'm not dead. I'll be home soon. I love you too, bye."

Kevin raised an eyebrow when Laura hung up the phone and put it back into her purse. "Now you can call Nikolas and tell him I'm not dead?" he echoed.

Laura let out a frustrated breath and sighed in resignation. "It doesn't happen as much anymore but it does still happen. I think it all goes back to when Nikolas made Britt leave and there are things I could say about that but Nikolas doesn't listen to me. But there are some nights that Spencer wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to his father and when Nikolas doesn't want to deal with him, Spencer comes to my wing and my room. Tonight was one of those nights. He discovered that I wasn't in bed and woke Nikolas and told him that I wasn't there. The idea that I have a life of my own and sometimes I even have plans that I don't tell them about is apparently so unfathomable to my children that Nikolas called Lulu to see if I was staying with her for the night, and Lulu called me. She's supposed to report back to Nikolas whether or not she got a hold of me."

Kevin could figure out the rest, pressing a light kiss to the soft skin behind her ear. "And tell her brother not to worry because you're not dead," he surmised. "Laura, they care about you. You're not where you're supposed to be so they got worried. Would you rather they not worry about you if you're out late?"

"I would rather they not worry about me at the exact moment you were about to kiss me. For starters," Laura snapped in irritation. "You said Christina knows you're on a date. I don't hear her calling you."

He didn't want to laugh at her, but he thought she looked so cute when she was frustrated and he couldn't help feeling proud of himself that he was the one that had done that to her. "Christina lives in France. Nikolas and Lulu live in the same town as you. The situations aren't exactly the same." Kevin carefully felt around the inside of his jacket to make sure his wallet and keys hadn't accidentally fallen out while he'd draped it around Laura and watched to make certain she had her purse and phone and everything he'd seen her come to their date with. The launch was quickly coming up on Spoon Island. Kevin bent his head to whisper quietly in Laura's ear. "Laura, do we have to tip the driver?"

"The launch captain?" Laura whispered back. There wasn't really a need for her to whisper because the launch captain was preoccupied with steering and stopping the boat, as he should be, and to be honest Laura wasn't even sure why Kevin would think he would have to tip the launch captain, but she realized that in all the time they had worked together he had only come to Wyndemere the one time and it did seem like something Kevin would worry about. "Kevin, no, Nikolas, Lulu, Spencer and I get allowed access to the launch whenever we need it, but this launch is part of the services of Spoon Island and the Cassadine estate. He gets paid very well from the Cassadine fortune." Laura immediately reached for his hand as the boat docked at Wyndemere. "You're an important part of my life, so you're going to learn a lot about Spoon Island and Wyndemere. Don't worry, I'll teach you."

He held tight to her hand (mostly for safety purposes, the inner voice in his mind kept rationalizing to him) and stayed holding her hand until she stepped off the boat and onto solid ground. They both spoke to the launch captain and thanked him for the trip, and Kevin told the other man he shouldn't be more than ten minutes, he just needed to see Laura to the door.

"Twenty minutes," she corrected him with a small smile, in front of the launch captain, no less, and the way she looked at him in that moment gave him a good understanding of what the two of them would be doing to occupy themselves with those ten extra minutes.

He nodded at the captain and hurriedly stepped off the boat, not wanting to be apart from Laura for any longer than absolutely needed. "Twenty minutes. Wait here for me, please." He took Laura's hand once more and walked with her to the large front entrance of Wyndemere.

Laura produced her house key and led him into the house. The only light she saw was the dimmest of lights coming from a lamp in the living room and she wasted no time in taking advantage of the privacy and setting her purse down on the first solid surface she could feel, walking into Kevin's waiting arms. She fully intended to apologize to him without words for Lulu's tragic lack of proper timing and to make up for their interrupted first kiss and then some in the next fifteen minutes. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Hi," she whispered softly.

His hands went to her waist immediately, embracing her in his strong arms, and even in the three-fourths darkness she could see his eyes blazing and his warm smile. "Hi," he whispered back. "Will you have dinner with me next Friday? Does that work for you?"

Laura nodded immediately. He was doing this out of order - he was supposed to kiss her first and ask her out after - but if she hurried and answered his questions first he wouldn't want to talk anymore and the remainder of their time together his mouth would be free to do other, much better things. "Saturday is better, but yes, Kevin, of course, I'd really love to have dinner with you again. We can call it a date from the beginning this time."

Kevin bent his head and whispered her name and this time there wasn't a question whether or not he was going to kiss her. She whimpered in frustration when his mouth didn't meet hers and he abruptly but gently pushed her away. "What the hell, Kevin Collins?" she hissed.

"Hello, Nikolas," he said politely, and if this wasn't the second time tonight and a different child of Laura's that had interrupted his first kiss with Laura it would have been comical how fast she had disentangled herself from his embrace and stepped away to make sure there was a son-approved acceptable amount of space between them. "I'm very sorry that I kept your mother out so late. We were working and didn't look at the time."

Laura turned around and frowned in annoyance and disappointment when she saw her son standing there in the front hall like he had been waiting. It must have been only by the grace of God that they hadn't bumped into each other when she and Kevin had first come inside. "For goodness sake, Nikolas, were you waiting up for me?"

"Lulu texted me and told me that you were on your way, Mother, so yes, I decided to come out here and wait for you. I was awake anyway because of Spencer. He was asking for you earlier." Nikolas only just then seemed to notice Kevin and Laura watched in maternal disappointment as his only acknowledgment of Kevin was a stiff nod in his direction. "You're still here. Thank you for seeing to it that she made it here safely, Dr. Collins, Lulu and I appreciate it. I trust you when she's with you. Try not to keep her out so late next time." Nikolas focused his attention back on Laura. "Good. Now that I know you are home where you belong I can text Lulu and we can all go back to bed. I'll see you in the morning, Mother. Dr. Collins, we don't want to keep you, I'm sure you have work to attend to early in the morning."

"Nikolas?" Laura called sweetly, taking a few steps down the hall herself before her son disappeared out of sight. "You and Lulu and I are going to have a long talk tomorrow, understand?"

Kevin had been standing uncomfortably in the background for most of the conversation and when Laura returned to the front hall she found him standing close to the massive front door with both of his hands in his pockets. He held open his arms for her as soon as he saw her and pressed his mouth to her temple. He shushed her apologies and told her that everything was fine, Nikolas was right, he did have work to attend to in the morning and he needed to be getting back to the launch anyway because he did have a full morning of patients tomorrow starting at eight. And she needed her rest too, he remarked with a half-smile, if she was going to have that long talk with Nikolas and Lulu tomorrow.

Laura looked at him expectantly when that seemed like it was going to be the extent of the physical contact. "Kevin?" she whispered questioningly.

Kevin sighed, a deep with regret type of sigh that he hoped spelled it out to Laura the depths of the predicament he was currently in: his gentlemanly behavior and old-fashioned charm would only hold out for so long. He warred with himself internally for a long time before he ultimately sighed again, shook his head and pressed his mouth to her forehead. "You have three children and we've already been interrupted by two of them. Lucky is in Ireland but the minute I kiss you your phone is going to ring and you're going to want to talk to him because he calls you so rarely." Kevin thought about changing his mind. Looking into her bright blue eyes filling with tears wasn't helping. But he went ahead and raised his hand to touch her cheek tenderly. He didn't want to spend their first kiss worrying in the back of his mind that her son might catch them. He half-expected Nikolas to turn on the lights at any moment and escort him from the castle or for Laura's phone to ring and it be Lulu, again. "Better not risk it," he murmured quietly. "I don't know when I'll get the first chance to call you tomorrow but I will definitely be in touch. Think about where you'd like me to take you for Saturday." He held her for a couple more minutes and whispered in her ear before he let her go. "Your two options are to leave your phone in my glove box in my car or have it with you on silent and give Lulu a different number she can call in case of an emergency."

Kevin was bound and determined not to kiss her for whatever reason and she didn't trust herself not to kiss him first, so she kept her distance. "I had a great time tonight, Kevin," she murmured. And she had, despite all the awkward parts that were at the beginning and Olivia making her opinions known and butting in where she didn't belong and Kiki the over-invested waitress. "I'm glad you asked me out." She smiled. "I'll call you tomorrow night if I don't hear from you before then. Text me when you can." Kevin squeezed her hand, kissed her gently on the cheek, and told her quietly that he would try very hard to text her sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Five minutes later when Laura closed the door to her room and locked it, her private room in her private wing of the castle away from Nikolas and Spencer, she looked down at her phone in her hand and there was a blinking blue light indicating a new text message. It had to be from Kevin.

 _I hope my choice not to kiss you didn't upset you and doesn't mean I have to wait until Saturday night to see you again and have another chance. I had a wonderful time with you tonight, Laura, and I hope you did too. Please don't be too hard on Nikolas and Lulu, they didn't know you were on a date._

Laura made a notation on her phone to ask Kevin tomorrow what his work schedule looked like for the rest of the week and put her phone face-down on the table while she went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. By the time she got back he should have answered her. She hoped very much that his patient schedule after tomorrow was a little easier because there was no way in hell she was going to wait six days to spend time with him.

* * *

Apparently spending any time together that week ended up being as hard to come by as the first-kiss-that-never-was on their first date. It frustrated both of them to no end that it seemed like the book was right and the best-laid plans of mice and men often _did_ go awry. Laura spent most of her afternoons convincing Spencer to pay attention to his schoolwork and be attentive to his tutors, they didn't pay exorbitant amounts of money for Spencer to goof off. Spencer's constant retort, complete with eye-roll, was that he was the son of a Cassadine prince and thus not expected to worry himself with matters trivial like education. If he ever needed to know something he had more than enough money and power to pay someone to do it for him. (Laura put another note in her phone to have a serious talk with Nikolas soon about Spencer's behavior.) Kevin's schedule was packed back-to-back-to-back with patients each morning and his non-patient hours he had in the afternoons he spent buried in paperwork. Laura had texted him a few times to check in and see how he was doing and even in text he sounded happy to hear from her but extremely tired and frustrated so she did her best to keep those conversations content-light and short and happy.

And when the first free hour Kevin had all week came on a Thursday afternoon when one of his regular patients switched to a different psychiatrist Laura had been at Kelly's having lunch with Lulu and Maxie for their monthly girls-day-out. She had finally come home hours later and found her phone on the table in the front foyer of Wyndemere and saw three texts and two missed calls from Kevin. That was the day Laura had spent a good fifteen minutes consulting the internet on how she could install a passcode and lockscreen on her phone.

She'd waited until after six o'clock that night, adding the traffic time to the time he left the office and judging he would be home by that time, and was surprised and sad for him that he was only just shutting down his computer and leaving the hospital. It was just one of those weeks, he'd admitted, and she heard through the phone how tired he was. So she'd settled down onto the couch in Wyndemere's den with one of the cryptography books Kevin had let her borrow on her lap, and talked to him and kept him company on the drive home. And she made sure to slip it into the conversation more than once how much she was looking forward to their date on Saturday and being able to spend uninterrupted time with him. Kevin stayed quiet when she had said that before finally saying that he wanted to see her more than anything but he had to go home and get some sleep. She'd been in the middle of telling him that she didn't need flowers from him, really, the simple fact that he was as excited about their date as she was was more than enough for her, when he'd interrupted and told her matter-of-factly that this was the part where if he was there with her and not on the phone with her, he'd kiss her to stop her rambling and get her to answer the question of what flowers she liked best.

Laura had spent the rest of that evening in a fantastic mood and alternately stopping herself from texting him all night long and reminding herself that this was real, she was dating a man that would bring her flowers for no reason at all except that she liked them.

Kevin had woken her on Friday morning with texts thanking her for talking to him the previous night and that when he'd finally made it home to his apartment he'd finished off some half-eaten leftovers in the back of his refrigerator and fallen asleep on his couch. But his eleven o'clock appointment that day had left a message on his secretary's voicemail saying she had to cancel and he had taken initiative to block out his noon hour for lunch - Kevin had told her he'd been so busy Monday and Tuesday he hadn't taken a lunch hour - so he had some free time, did she want to come to the hospital to see him? Laura had texted him back immediately and told him she'd be there at eleven.

She was taking advantage of an unexpected opening in his very busy schedule to visit him at work, that was it, and while she was there she needed to pick up her prescription. The fact that she had given herself a critical once-over in the mirror before she left was of no importance at all. This wasn't a date. Maybe date one point five if she was keeping track, but she wasn't.

Laura was at General Hospital by eleven-fifteen and went to the pharmacy first to pick up her prescription so she wouldn't have to rush through the two hours she had with Kevin. By eleven-thirty the elevator doors opened to the psychiatric floor and she followed the arrows on the wall carefully to see where the section of physician offices were and from there it was easy to read the nameplates and find where Kevin's was located. Kevin had a secretary, something she didn't know but she figured she should have, which brought up her first official problem with dating Kevin: what to identify herself as. They had only been on one date and they hadn't even kissed yet. She wasn't Kevin's girlfriend, not yet, and even when she and Kevin got to a place where he did call her his girlfriend, she didn't think either of them would be comfortable with broadcasting the news to his colleagues and thus the entire hospital. But it turned out it didn't matter. Kevin came out of his private office at the same time she opened the main door to the reception area but he was carrying a full load of files in his arms and looked as though he was in a hurry. He didn't see her. Laura stayed quiet while he bent in close to his secretary and told her to please see to it that all of those files made it to Dr. Maddox immediately, and waited patiently for him to acknowledge her. Which he did, three minutes later.

Laura understood that he wouldn't be kissing her at work in front of his colleagues if he wouldn't kiss her in her mostly-empty home, but he didn't even step towards her. She immediately scolded herself for being such a baby. Maybe she'd misread his text and gotten his free hour wrong. He might not have time for lunch or for her. He was obviously in the middle of something important and her presence was distracting him. And he'd been telling her for the past few days what a monumentally busy week he was having. But still - "You told me to come see you, Kevin."

Kevin looked at her, really looked at her, murmuring to his secretary - Sofia, Kevin had just called her, Laura would have to remember that her name was Sofia, hopefully she'd have more reason in the upcoming weeks to get to know her - that he was going to take a ten-minute break and to hold his calls. His face softened when he looked at Laura again and Laura relaxed. There they were, the warm and caring and expressive eyes that Laura loved - liked to see. Kevin opened the door of the office for her and his hand rested carefully on her back as he expertly led her through the maze of the hallways and out of the offices back to the elevators. "I'm so sorry, honey, but I can't have lunch with you. I'm swamped." He frowned when she looked at him like she so badly wanted to tell him where he could shove it but was too much of a lady to say that to him in public where he worked. "Please tell me I at least texted you. You're looking at me like I didn't and I don't want to you think I don't want to see you."

"Nope."

"Damn it," he swore under his breath, letting out a breath of frustration. "I wrote myself a note to call you. Laura, I am so sorry, but I'm glad you came. Seeing you for these five minutes is going to be the best part of my day."

Laura didn't have the heart to be mad at him when he looked so miserable and he looked at his watch twice when he thought she wasn't looking while he walked her to the elevators, so he had to be telling her the truth about being so busy. It wasn't a thinly-veiled reason to get out of spending time with her. She didn't know don't know a lot about his job but knew he was bound by doctor-patient confidentiality on a lot of topics, but Kevin had listened to her for the past six months talk about every painful memory she'd ever had in her entire life and how Helena Cassadine no doubt planned to use all of those things against her, so if he needed to talk to her about his awful week she was there. Or she could try and convince him to tell her where he was taking her on Saturday if he didn't want to talk about work. She'd given him a few suggestions but had told him to surprise her, and he seemed to have taken that comment seriously. He'd texted her on Monday that he had made reservations for a new restaurant he thought she'd like but wouldn't tell her anything else or give her even one hint. She'd even tried her seldom-used seductive voice to ask him where he was taking her and Kevin had told her firmly not to ever use that voice on him again while he was driving unless she wanted him to get into an accident and not be able to take her out at all.

Nothing worked. He'd texted her later that night how much he appreciated the effort but that he wanted it to be a surprise because that's what she had said she wanted. He wasn't going to tell her where he was taking her, so don't try to ask.

"Glad to hear it," she said quietly, and they walked hand-in-hand to the elevator. The fact that Laura allowed him to hold her hand in public was the only way Kevin knew she wasn't mad. He held the elevator open for her and followed her inside, thinking the least he could do was drive her back to the launch or wherever she wanted to go and spend that time with her. Laura told him to just let her off at the main floor, the emergency room, she could get a ride from there to the launch. Maybe she'd stay in town and go shopping or maybe she'd go back home. She held up her hand when Kevin protested and told him she would get her own ride to where she needed to be, he needed to go back to work.

Kevin reached for her hand in mid-air and pressed consecutive small kisses to her palm, pulling her into his arms for a hug.

The elevator ride took two minutes. "I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I meant to call you, Laura, I really did." He pressed another kiss to the top of her head and fully intended to take advantage of every private second they had to hold her. Neither one of them gave the cameras that the elevators had for security purposes a passing thought.

Instinctively, Laura stepped away from Kevin the second she heard the elevator ding so they would be apart from each other by the time the doors opened. Kevin had different plans. She barely had taken one step into the floor of the emergency room when he yanked carefully on her hand and took her behind one of the hallways. The back hallway that Laura remembered getting very little foot traffic despite it being close to the elevators on the floor of a major trauma hospital. Kevin had a purpose to whatever he was doing and walked so quickly she had to do a half-walk, half-jog to keep up with him. Laura didn't have a clue what he wanted in this hallway, why he was wasting time when the entire point of her leaving without having lunch with him was because he was so busy, but she supposed it was okay that she didn't know because there was no way she could have managed to get the words out of her mouth. Not when Kevin shielded them both from view and semi-roughly pinned her against the wall. Not when he used his upper body to hold her in place, his hands moved up and down her body before coming to rest on her hips, and he looked at her with such intensity that there was no way she would have remembered her own name if he asked.

Laura struggled mightily under the intensity of his gaze to hold on to what was left of her self-control. She tracked every move he made, how his right hand left her waist and came up to trace the outline of her jaw. How his eyes got dark all of a sudden and his voice got low when he whispered to her how beautiful she was. How he looked at her like he never wanted to stop touching her. This wasn't fair of him to do this in public, not yet. Not when they'd only been on one date. She didn't trust herself not to throw herself into his arms if he didn't do something immediately.

Kevin pressed three open-mouthed kisses to Laura's neck and smiled in triumph against her skin when he heard her whine and clutch at him. There was a reason he'd brought her back here, he liked to think he wasn't a stupid man. He was acting purely on instinct for the first time in a very long time and all of his instincts were telling him he wanted to kiss her until he had no choice but to stop because they needed to breathe. "I'm going to kiss you right now unless you tell me not to, Laura Spencer, and you have three seconds to tell me not to. Three…"

Laura was suddenly aware of Kevin's knee nudging in between her legs so he could get closer. One of her hands was in his hair, the other clutched firmly a fistful of his shirt fabric and she had no recollection of how either of those things had happened. She was achingly aware of her heart hammering fast beneath her ribs and how badly she needed him to kiss her right this minute. "Why would I stop y -"

Kevin's mouth was on hers before she had even finished the sentence.

It was nice (who was she kidding, it was _very_ nice) but it wasn't anything spectacular as far as first kisses went. The rest of the earth didn't melt away under her feet or start to spin and she didn't see fireworks or stars or even cartoon hearts. Kevin didn't know what to do with his hands, exactly, and she was too self-conscious and aware that they were at his place of work in blatant view of anyone that decided they wanted to walk around either corner. But Kevin deepened the kiss and put one of his hands on the wall above her head and the other tangled in her hair and all she could do was whimper happy little sounds into his mouth. It was like an out-of-body-experience hearing herself moan his name. She was completely and totally wrong about him not knowing what he was doing and she'd never been more satisfied to be wrong in her life. Kevin Collins was kissing her like his life depended on it and his kisses made her feel happy and alive in a way that she hadn't felt in such a long time. He pulled away and she whimpered on cue at the loss of his warm mouth on hers. Kevin touched his forehead to hers and murmured something she didn't catch, but he said it so tenderly that she decided she didn't care at that moment what he had said. Nor did she care where they were, who could catch them, or that Kevin still had her pinned against the wall. It didn't take longer than the count of one for him to lean in again to cover her mouth with his.

This time Kevin's hands moved of their own accord to her hips and wandered to her bottom to pull her even closer, and she pressed herself into the curve of his body as close as she possibly could because she couldn't possibly get enough of him right now. This time she vaguely heard his hoarse voice say a few words in French and he made this _growling sound_ low in the back of his throat that was so incredibly sexy it made her clutch tighter to his shirt and she made some sounds of her own that got the reaction out of him she wanted, judging by his hands gripping her hips even tighter. She gasped for him please not to stop, don't ever stop kissing her, and he did something to her just then it made Laura wish more than anything in the world they were anywhere but here. That they were anywhere but a back hallway behind some elevators on the emergency room floor at General Hospital. This time it was a spectacular kiss from start to finish and she cursed Kevin for having to go back to work. Laura knew what people were saying now when they said practice made perfect.

Apparently she had said that last part out loud. Whined it if Kevin's barely-able-to-hide-it self-satisfied grin was anything to go by. "I don't want to go back to work," he said. He kissed her again before she could even react and had to stop himself from wrapping her up in his arms and letting his hands wander some more. Easier said than done when she was looking at him with dazed and unfocused eyes and her hands still clenched in his shirt. "I want to stay here with you."

"Maybe not here exactly," she whispered, absently running her fingers through his hair. "The next time we're alone." She blushed. "Not that I minded in the least what you just did."

Kevin's tone was raw with emotion and unbridled want, his voice hoarse. "I have wanted to kiss you since the minute I left you at Wyndemere," he whispered. One of his fingers twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I'm sorry I waited so long and I'm sorry I dragged you back here. You deserve better for a first kiss than the back hallway of the hospital where I work."

Laura quickly took her face in her hands and kissed him again, forcing herself to keep it chaste this time so they wouldn't get carried away and he wouldn't get fired. Which might work for his plan to spend all of his time with her, but not so much for his career. He loved his job and she knew it. His passion for his work was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. "Shh. I've wanted you to kiss me since we got off the launch," she admitted. "And don't you dare tell me what I do and don't deserve, Kevin Collins. All I wanted since our date was for you to kiss me and you did."

"Tomorrow I'm allowed to kiss you again?" He didn't want to let go of her, ever. But he needed to pull himself away from her and go back upstairs to his office. The overwhelming desire to take her hand and take her to an empty on-call room where he could press her against the nearest flat surface and spend the next hour kissing her was so - present in his mind that he knew he needed to forget it and get back to work. Giving in to those thoughts right now wouldn't be right or fair to either of them. "I promise our date's somewhere private."

The corners of her mouth tugged into a smile. She might have been out of the dating game for a long time and so had he, but it was clear to her that something had changed between them in the last five minutes and the scorching, intense physical attraction was there for the taking. If she wanted. If he wanted. "You are allowed to kiss me anytime you want to, anywhere you want to, and you don't even have to ask my permission."

He took that as an invitation and quickly wrapped her back in his arms and kissed her again, deepening the kiss practically immediately. She happily obliged him and they kissed for as long as she could go without breathing. It took five more minutes and three kisses exactly the same as that for her to muster the willpower to walk away from him. Kevin whispered in her ear a frenzied promise that he would _definitely_ be calling her that night and maybe she could use that seductive-voice on him. Laura bit down on her lower lip and reached up on the very tips of her toes to barely brush her lips against his. No, Kevin Collins, that seductive-voice was only going to be used in person from now on. She had - other ways that she planned on using to get it out of him where he was taking her on their date tomorrow. Ways that she thought would be enjoyable to both of them. Even over the phone.

She pulled back at the last millisecond and didn't allow her to kiss her like he obviously wanted to, and whispered in his ear that she'd be waiting to hear from him. He didn't even try to hide his look of desire for her as she walked away and that made Laura smile. Maybe she'd been out of the dating game for awhile, but she still had game, as Lulu would say.

Laura risked one last look back at him and blew him a kiss when she was sure no one was watching but Kevin. The way he looked at her made her think some entirely inappropriate-for-the-current-state-of-their-relationship-thoughts.

Laura went out the left set of double doors to leave the hospital and Kevin took a few minutes to steady himself before heading back to the elevators to get back to his office and his patients. Once both of them were gone and no one else was within ten feet of the hallway Maxie Jones stepped out of her hiding place.

She had been walking the hallways searching for Nathan and had barely had enough time to press record on her smartphone and jump behind one of the structures to avoid being seen. Dillon was Crimson's photographer so she didn't have a camera and besides, video was going to be so much better for this. Maxie had watched in awe and with her mouth hanging half-open, her cameraphone silently recording all the while, when Dr. Collins dragged Laura Spencer behind the elevators and it hadn't taken a blind person to see that they weren't exactly talking back there. And by drag behind the elevators she did mean _drag_. Good God, this was hot and going to be the most fabulous gossip. Wait until Lulu found out about this! That was one of the best kisses she had ever seen in her entire life, even if she did grudgingly have to take away some hotness points because one of the participants was her best friend's mom. Watching Laura make out with someone was almost as bad as walking in on her own mom when she was getting frisky with Mac. Maxie shuddered at the memory. She'd done that once and told herself never again.

Maxie didn't want her best friend to be blindsided. She stood in the middle of the hallway where Laura Spencer and Dr. Kevin Collins had just spent the last six minutes (the cameraphone had a time-counter and Maxie had to give them their due when the clock went over five minutes) making out with no shame and frantically pulled up a blank text message window, scrolled through her contacts to the L's until she found Lulu's number, and pressed the attachment icon to attach the six-minute video.

 _omg lulu, your mom and dr. collins?! why did you not tell me about this?!_


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Sorry for the massive delay in updates, I wrote the first draft of this chapter and when I went to edit my muse decided she wanted to change a lot of things about this chapter. Lol. And it was giving me all sorts of trouble but I finally got it to work, I think. There's a bit of a time jump in this chapter, Kevin and Laura have been happily dating for two months. Happiness, of course, is hard to come by in Port Charles, as you will see in this and future chapters. I hope you enjoy it anyway and I want to thank all my readers and reviewers for keeping me encouraged and motivated for this story and this chapter in particular. There might be an M-rated section or two. Or what I called a tentative baby m.**

 **Oh, and when I first word-counted this chapter it was over 17K words, so I split it into two. So that means you get TWO chapters from me this weekend! You're welcome, KevLaur Nation. LOL.**

 **Happy reading!**

* * *

Kevin forced himself to look at his daughter in such a way that would show he disapproved of her behavior. As a psychiatrist Kevin knew perfectly well he was the last person that should be advocating someone to continue a relationship with a person they identified as toxic and clearly didn't want to have a meaningful relationship with and all of the reasons that was a bad idea, but as a parent it was different. This was different. This was his daughter and his ex-wife. "Christina, she's your mother, you have to call her back, please."

His not-so-little-anymore girl's stubborn face came into focus on his laptop screen and he faintly heard the click-clack, click-clack of a pen strumming on her desk as she talked, one of the few unfortunate habits he knew she'd picked up from him. Lucy had always been so amazed how alike Kevin and Christina were even though they weren't related biologically and he'd known she hadn't always meant it in a positive way but he had always taken it as the highest compliment. "Not about this, daddy, no, I don't," she retorted. She held her phone toward the middle of the Skype screen so he could see it for himself and Kevin was secretly pleased to see in the background that her schoolbooks were stacked neatly on her desk. He wasn't the most organized person, she'd been to his office enough times as a little girl to know that, and he was happy to see visible proof that he'd managed to impress upon her the importance of a clean workspace and how that would help her with her studies. "Dad, you had every reason in the world to badmouth mom to me after you divorced but you never, ever did and you didn't allow her to talk badly about you in my presence, either. I know that was one of the few things you insisted on when you filed for divorce. That means more to me than you'll ever know and I refuse to betray you and interrogate you for mom's sake."

Under the table where the laptop camera wouldn't be able to pick it up Kevin pumped his fist in vindication. As a psychiatrist _and_ a father Kevin knew that doing his best to uphold positive relationships between Christina and himself as well as between Christina and her mom would be best for their daughter in the long run. "Honey, your mom wasn't asking you to interrogate me, I'm sure." He squinted when she scrolled angrily to a particular text message on her phone and shoved that message up close to the computer screen. "You know I can't read whatever it is you want me to read when it's two inches from my face like that. Pull it back and read it to me."

Her sheepish smile morphed fast into a hard frown as she recited the text to him from memory. " _Good morning to my favorite daughter! I heard it through the Port Charles grapevine that your dad has a girlfriend, finally. You've always been your father's girl, see what you can find out and get back to me._ " Kevin watched as Christina's phone disappeared behind her into an abnormally-large collection of pillows. "First of all, calling me her favorite daughter is what you do and she knows it. **You** always call me your favorite girl, dad. **You**. That's our thing. And second of all, that 'finally' was completely unnecessary. So what if it took you awhile to get back into dating? She broke your heart. You were - being selective and thorough. Mom could learn a thing or two about that from you." She turned serious. "Dad, if she wants to know something about you so badly she can ask you herself. I'm not going to be her spy."

"Christina Marie Collins!" Kevin said. Christina immediately recognized it as his rarely-used authoritative-angry-dad-voice. He didn't like it when he had to discipline her, hadn't ever since she was a child. Lucy was more the disciplinarian of the house. "I am aware that you and your mother aren't close like you were and I am very sorry the way Lucy hurt me hurt you to the extent that it did, but nevertheless she is still your mother. Choose your words and your tone accordingly."

Two months after the divorce had been finalized and Kevin had slowly started to emerge from the worst of the hurt and the devastation and most of all the betrayal Christina had knocked on the door of his brand-new apartment, a folder of official-looking papers in her hands and a nervous bounce in her feet as she rocked back and forth on her heels. The first sentence - the first long, run-on sentence where Kevin remembered having to put his hands on her shoulders to steady her - out of her mouth was that she had been planning this for a long time, it wasn't an emotional reaction to her mom and Scott's betrayal, and she had planned on giving him the papers for his next birthday present but he'd seemed like he needed the pick me up then. Kevin remembered having no shame at the tear rolling down his face when he saw what she had wanted him to see. He still remembered the shy and nervous tentative smile on Christina's face and her obviously relieved laugh when he'd picked her up and swung her around, hugging her tighter than he could ever remember hugging her before. On that first paper staring at him was evidence of the one thing he hadn't ever dared himself to dream.

Kevin remembered having read it four times to be sure it was real and it had been difficult because his eyes had misted over. There it had been in black and white, as real as he saw his own name as her father. Legal paperwork from the courthouse to show how the young woman that had always been his daughter had changed her name on all her identifying documents from Christina Baldwin to Christina Collins.

Christina reluctantly apologized. Kevin told her firmly that he knew when Lucy had sent her that text and he knew that she hadn't answered her back. "Do you know how I know that? Because your mother has called me once, sometimes twice a day, for every day you refuse to talk to her. I have my own life now, Christina, I don't want to get sucked back into your mother's dramatics. Please, please, if only for me, take pity on your poor father and get in touch with your mom. You don't even have to call her if you don't want to, you can text. But you do have to call her once a week, you know that, honey. I don't want her on my case if you don't." Kevin steadfastly reminded himself of what Christina had said not even five minutes before about appreciating him for not badmouthing her other parent in front of her and ordered himself not to say anything more about his ex-wife. "If you're looking for something to say you can tell your mother that not once did I or have I ever felt any desire to know about her and Scott's relationship, that as a matter of fact I knew more than I wanted to when I saw them that night at the Nurses' Ball, and that if I happen to have a girlfriend I deserve the same consideration I've always given her. My relationship with Laura is off-limits to her for discussion unless it becomes something that would impact you." He didn't have the faintest idea why Lucy would care who he was dating. They had been over for three and a half years and from the little he knew from the Port Charles grapevine Lucy was still doing whatever she was doing with Scott Baldwin. "You can say that in a nicer way if you think of one, of course. Just please don't talk to her in all emojis. I still haven't learned what all the new ones mean."

"Uh, Daddy, your doorbell is ringing," he heard Christina say suddenly. "Or else you programmed your phone to have that ringtone that sounds like a doorbell, which is really annoying and super-lame so I hope you didn't do that. I emailed you a list of socially acceptable ringtones last week, did you not get that?" Christina rolled her eyes. "You can answer it if you want, I'll wait. We've got time."

No. Absolutely not. They'd been Skype-chatting for forty-five minutes already and sixty minutes was usually the most time uninterrupted they could get in one sitting. Because of both of their schedules and the time difference between Paris and New York they could usually only find a time to talk that worked for both of them once or twice a week and Kevin never allowed himself to cancel or cut those times short unless it was an extreme circumstance. Someone at his door was not an extreme circumstance. It was mid-evening on a Wednesday and all of his neighbors were more sociable than he was so he assumed they were out. Laura had called him after work to tell him she had plans that night she couldn't get out of and if he was being totally honest Laura was the only one he would open his door for at that hour. Mac was the only close friend he had that would visit and he doubted it was Mac.

"They'll go away if I ignore it. You need to be nice to your mother, Christina, I mean it. She loves you, really, she just doesn't always show it in the most productive ways." The doorbell rang again, more persistently this time, accompanied by a short tap-tap of four quick knocks. Whoever it was didn't seem like they wanted to go away. Kevin sighed and pulled himself off the couch and headed for the front door. "Stay there and text mom," he told her. "I'll only be a minute."

Laura practically threw herself into his arms as soon as he opened the door, pressing herself against him and burying her face in the soft space between his neck and his shoulder. "Kevin…" She was as close to crying as he'd ever seen her since they'd started dating and grabbed his shirt with both of her hands. "Hold me," she murmured, so soft he had to strain to hear her. "Please hold me. Don't say anything and don't try to fix it. Can you do that?"

Kevin wrapped his arms around her and pressed a long, hard kiss to the top of her head. He was pretty sure he knew why she was here, unfortunately, it was the same reason she'd started visiting his apartment at least twice a week and why every night he called her to say goodnight and dared to bring up The Subject she sounded on the verge of tears, but he knew better to try and attempt to get her to talk before she wanted to. That hadn't ever ended well for him. "Shh, honey, it's okay, I'm right here," he murmured soothingly, rubbing soft circles into the small of her back. Something in his heart clenched when he saw how sad and despondent she looked. Her grip on his shirt gradually decreased and he glanced up and down the hallway to make sure she hadn't drawn any unwanted attention. "Laura," he whispered. "I will hold you as long as you need me to but it might be a good idea if we move out of my doorway. Come inside with me." She immediately took his hand and held it like it was a lifeline. Kevin smiled in spite of himself and kissed her on the forehead. He considered his next words carefully. Laura and Christina had talked a few times before on Skype, more often via text, and it might make her feel better to talk to his daughter. "I'm just finishing up talking to Christina," he said quietly. "Why don't you sit on the couch and say hello for a few minutes while I pour us some wine?"

Laura pressed her face into the crook of his neck again and stubbornly refused to speak, to the point where he had to practically pull her inside so he could close his front door and give them a little privacy. Kevin knew he was going to cut his conversation with his daughter short and not feel guilty about it when he heard Laura's voice hitch and heard the overwhelming sob that threatened to overtake her. "'m sorry," he heard her mumble, her words muffled against his neck. "This is your hour with Christina, I'll go."

"Wrong answer," he corrected her gently. Kevin waited patiently for her to lift her head and when she did he slowly used his thumb to wipe away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. "You're upset, you're not going anywhere." He kissed her again, this time on the mouth. "I just need to say goodbye to Christina and then we can talk."

There was a particular gleam in Christina's eye he didn't much care for when he went back to his laptop and told her Laura was there and upset and he was going to have to call her back. Too late after she ended the video call he realized that his daughter had only promised that she wouldn't interrogate him about Laura and report her findings to Lucy but made no such promise not to interrogate him for her own sake. But he didn't have time to worry about that now. Not when Laura was so upset.

He kept a watchful eye on her as he went to the kitchen and poured the two of them half glasses of wine, noticing how she carefully made sure to close his laptop and organize his important work-related papers on the edge of the table before she made herself comfortable on his couch. It was entirely too early in their relationship for him to even think about moving in together, but he'd be a fool and a lying one at that if he didn't admit to himself he'd thought about what it would be like to come home to her every night. "Laura?" he murmured quietly as not to scare her, moving into the living room and setting the wine glasses on the table in front of her.

It didn't take long after he sat down beside her for Kevin to be pushed back frantically against his own couch. He knew exactly what she wanted and moved so his head was against one of the arms of the couch and his legs entwined with hers, so he could pull her against him. She took his not-subtle hint and did him one better, snuggling into him and getting herself as close to him as she could. Kevin took a lot of pride in the fact that over the course of the last two months of them dating Laura slowly was allowing herself to be more affectionate with him physically. Not in public except for the occasional holding hands, and not when she visited him at work, but when they were in his apartment or at Wyndemere just the two of them they had no problems exploring together the still-unclear boundaries of their new relationship. More than once she had surprised him with how far she was willing to let him go.

Laura started playing with the bottom two buttons of his shirt, first tracing them with her fingers and then unbuttoning them and reaching for the other buttons. Which made Kevin freeze, take a breath, and take that hand and bring it to his mouth, pressing a tiny kiss to her palm. She had come to him practically in tears and he wanted to know why that was and talk to her about it before they attempted to do anything else. No matter how much he might want to do "something else" with her.

"Honey, stop," he whispered quietly. Kevin carefully ran his fingers through her hair and in response she made a contented little sound and stared at him with those damned seductive half-closed eyes that made him want nothing more than to take her to his bedroom, if he was a man with lesser willpower. He'd had to use a lot of willpower the last few weeks when it came to Laura. "Will you talk to me?" She didn't communicate an answer in words but grabbed both sides of his shirt collar and thoroughly kissed him. Methodically, slowly, tantalizingly slowly, she brought him to life in more ways than one. Some parts of him more so than others. Her hands went to the belt loops of his jeans, she straddled his waist and moved and rocked against him, ducking her head to start to unbutton the remaining four closed buttons on his shirt. "Laura," he said as firmly as he could, reaching his hands up to her waist to hold her still. God, it took all the mental strength he had not to embarrass himself and try to convince her they needed to stop. She looked at him with a confused and slightly hurt expression and Kevin decided that holding her hand was safe enough for the moment. "Did - did you talk to Lulu today?"

He tightened his hold on her hand and her hips when she tried to pull away from him, pressing another long kiss to her forehead - mostly to maintain physical contact while calming both of them down but also to nonverbally apologize for forcing the issue. Sometimes for being such an educated man he could be remarkably unintelligent. She'd talk when she was ready. Lulu Spencer-Falconeri was not a subject Laura had been willing to talk to him about lately (she much preferred to stay with him on his couch and kiss him, not that that was a bad thing) and by lately he meant the last eight weeks. Since the afternoon of their first kiss in the back hallway of General Hospital, to be exact.

Unbeknownst to the two of them when they'd been in the middle of that incredible makeout session - Kevin still thought it was incredible and had no problems admitting it out loud, even though Laura still rolled her eyes at him for being such a _man_ about it - they hadn't been entirely alone like Kevin had intended and planned for. Apparently Maxie Jones of all people had recorded them and sent the recording to her best friend and it had honestly only been Kevin's decades-long history with Mac and his respect for their friendship that stopped him from going through with scaring Maxie by pressing charges of voyeurism and invasion of privacy. He hadn't been able to get a real answer out of Mac why Maxie had thought filming them and sending the video around would have been a good idea except for a promise that he would talk to her. You know Maxie, man, Mac told him, but that hadn't worked for Kevin. Yes, he knew Maxie and her propensity for gossip, Mac had basically raised the girl, but Mac knew him and Laura. Did the two of them look like people that appreciated having their personal business spread all over Port Charles?

Because that was exactly what had happened. All he had was Mac's promise of Maxie's word that she had only intended to send the video to Lulu and had pressed the wrong buttons and accidentally sent it to everyone in her contact list including her Crimson contacts. Word of Dr. Kevin Collins and Laura Spencer making out in a public hallway at his place of work had made it around town within hours.

It wasn't even the fact that Kevin got an almost-immediate shit-eating smile from Elizabeth Webber the minute he stepped foot into the emergency room that next day that had aggravated him. It wasn't that he'd gotten an angry phone call from Serena for the first time in ages berating him for humiliating her mom in front of the whole town (another byproduct of the divorce was that while Christina had taken his side, her half-sister Serena had just as staunchly sided with her mom and Scotty) or the fact that his secretary Sofia had grinned at him when he'd come into the office and told him she'd seen the video and teased him that if she'd known he could kiss like that the last three years could have been _very_ different and she could have helped him get over his divorce that much quicker - Kevin could and did soldier through all of that no matter how much the extra attention bothered him. He'd been through it after Lucy and the Nurses' Ball. What bothered Kevin the most, what upset him every time he heard another remark and made him hold Laura a little tighter those first few days as if he could protect her from it all, was what news of their relationship spreading around Port Charles had done to Laura.

Laura's relationship with her daughter had been at best strained since that day. And that was putting it in terms fit for polite company.

Kevin had learned of the explosive confrontation after the fact, about Lulu calling her mother mere minutes after she had gotten the video from Maxie and making no secret about (loudly, Laura told him. Very loudly) how mortified, disgusted and unbelievably hurt she was that she'd had to find out about her mother's new relationship **not** from her mother, but from her best friend. That she had even _called_ Laura that night of Kevin and Laura's first date because she and Nikolas had been _worried_ about her, and Laura had blatantly lied to her about being on a date. That Lulu couldn't understand why her mother felt the need to hide this from her and take it that one step further to actually _lie_ to her about it. That maybe Lulu and her mom didn't have the relationship Lulu thought they did if Laura couldn't trust her with this because it hadn't been just the one lie, it had been multiple lies, multiple dates with Kevin. That Laura had this entirely secret part of her life that she chose not to share with her children. And that Laura had clearly been lying to Lulu for months way before the "first date" because she had to have been in a relationship for with Kevin for months because no one kisses like that for a first kiss, not even her and Dante. (When Laura had called Kevin later that night to tell him all of this he had committed the grave error of laughing when she got to the part about what Lulu had said about the kiss and Laura had snapped at him to shut up and quit sounding so proud of himself unless he wanted their first kiss to also be their last kiss) Kevin suspected that Lulu had said other, more hurtful things to her mother that Laura hadn't shared with him. Her frequent visits to his apartment proved it.

Kevin hadn't been proud of the way he'd obtained the limited information about her and Lulu he did have: always in his apartment on his couch, with Laura in his arms and pressed tight against him, when his mouth rarely left her neck and he had quickly figured out that was when she was most _agreeable_ to answering questions. Which if he was being honest that did end with him feeling like a heel, using their mutual physical attraction against her. Laura had told him time and time again that she didn't have the right to burden him with her troubles with Lulu when he had already done so much for her, but she was the one that ended up at his apartment twice a week needing to be held and kissed and comforted. Something he was more than willing to do, don't misunderstand him, anything that got him one-on-one time with her was fine by him, but this had been going on for two months and he hated hearing her sad when he called her every night.

"Please, Kevin, please," she breathed, pressing a line of open-mouthed kisses to his bare chest. Laura suddenly let out a low and desperate whimper and rocked her hips into his, harder and insistent and like she _wanted_ him. "I want…"

Kevin put his hands on her waist, firmly but gently, so she couldn't move, so she couldn't keep doing what she was doing and cause the one strand of self-control he was so desperately trying to hold on to disintegrate into nothing. He didn't want their first time to be like this - as a reaction of her trying to run away from her emotions about her daughter barely speaking to her for two months. "You want to feel something other than hurt about Lulu," he said tenderly, letting one hand move to brush a strand of hair away from her face. "I don't want it to be like this and neither do you. When I take you to bed it's going to be so good, honey, I promise, and there won't be anything for you to be sad about at all."

Laura immediately stopped what she was doing and continued to straddle his waist, but she had as serious a look as he had ever seen before. "I hate it when you do that, you know," she murmured quietly. She played with his shirt but didn't look at him. "That's not fair. I don't want Dr. Collins, I want Kevin."

He hadn't meant to offend her but evidently he had. God, he was bad at this part too. So Lucy hadn't been all wrong with what she had screamed at him the day he had given her the divorce papers to sign. "Hey," he whispered, daring to dip underneath her blouse to touch the bare skin of her back. "You've got me, sweetheart, you've always got me. I care about you. I want you to be happy and clearly you're not happy with Lulu. Please talk to me."

Kevin felt the tears on his skin and heard her quiet sniffles getting louder as his arms instinctively tightened around her. "She hates me," he heard her whimper, laying her head on his chest, and Kevin knew what his first errand for tomorrow would be. Lulu wasn't his child and he knew she wouldn't appreciate the interference - and Laura probably wouldn't either - but he couldn't stand back and let Laura be hurt anymore. Lulu apparently was talking to her mother in ways that the few times it happened brought Laura to tears in the middle of his apartment and this time was the last straw. He was officially relieving himself of his self-imposed promise to stay out of it.

He pressed his mouth into her hair. "Oh, Laura, I highly doubt that's true," he murmured. "You are her only mother, she loves you, sweetheart, she loves you so much." He breathed an internal sigh of relief when fresh tears stopped coming and all he had to do was wipe away her tear-stained cheeks. Laura had cried so much over Lulu the past two months and each time he was witness to see it happen it broke his heart that much more. He wanted to make the educated guess that if Lulu had called her mother today the call hadn't ended on good terms and every part of him wanted to know exactly what those terms were so he could refute them gently to Laura one by one but all he said was a quiet "Tell me what happened."

Kevin hadn't spent the last eight months being good friends with Laura Spencer without learning the thousands of little things she did each day to protect herself against real or imagined hurts and he felt immediately the shift in Laura's body language. "She didn't say it in exact words but she thinks that I'm putting you first, that I - care about you and spending time with you more than I love her." She held his shirt tight in her hands. "And - and you are important to me, Kevin, surely you have to know how much I care about you, how much I….like dating you, but I had to have done something wrong somewhere in my life if Lulu doesn't know that she's one of the three most important people in the entire world to me."

There wasn't anything he could say to her to make this better right now so he didn't try. All he did was continue to run his fingers through her hair and encourage her to keep talking, he was there with her and he wasn't going anywhere. And not just because she had him pinned to the couch and she was nice and warm and keeping parts of him warm too. He cared about her, too, a hell of a lot. He wasn't going anywhere ever, as long as he had anything to say about it.

At least the part about her keeping parts of him warm got her to smile, even if it was at his expense. "She was at Wyndemere waiting for me when I got home this afternoon. She, um - I knew she was being prompted by Nikolas, but she asked about you. Nikolas made up some excuse for leaving five minutes later and I...I knew the minute he left, Kevin, that any conversation I wanted to have with her about you was over. But - we talked. Oh, Kevin, we talked about her and Rocco and Dante and her life and it was the most we've talked to each other in _weeks._ " Her grip on his shirt got harder and her bright blue eyes filled with tears again. "She even asked me to babysit Rocco two nights this week because Dante was going to take her to some bed-and-breakfast upstate." Kevin uncurled her left hand from his shirt and slowly ran his thumb across the inside of her palm. He knew it had broken her heart the most that Lulu chose Olivia to be the primary babysitter of Rocco these days. "I told her I'd love to and I even thanked her for asking me, but she said it was Friday and Saturday and she must have seen the look on my face or seen me look at the calendar -"

Kevin waited patiently for Laura to look up at him and when she finally lifted her head from his chest he cupped her jaw in his hand and kissed her. "Laura, I can change the reservations I made for us, that's no problem. If you want to see Rocco -"

He wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that her first nonverbal response was wrapping her arms around his waist and sighing. "She saw the playbill on the counter of that concert you took me to last weekend and I think she assumed the reason I asked about the dates was that I had another date with you this weekend. Lulu - um, Lulu said that she could handle herself being hurt that I would put time with you over my daughter but that she wouldn't allow me to do that to my grandson and to break Rocco's heart the same way. She said she'd be getting Olivia to babysit from now on. It's - oh, Kevin, god, she's so much like me the way she closes herself off when she thinks someone's hurt her, I could see the wall in her eyes go back up and shut me out again, and she's so angry at me, more so than she ever was. Except I'm not even sure now if she's angry at me still for not telling her about you, or she's upset and lashing out because me dating means I'm not at her disposal all the time to watch Rocco like I used to be."

That was it, Kevin wouldn't stand for it any longer to hear Laura sounding so resigned to the idea she had done something wrong and Lulu might be right in how she was treating her. "You're allowed to be happy, Laura," he whispered. "You're allowed to be happy, and you are allowed to be happy with me. Lulu is adjusting to her mother dating and acting out in the only way she knows that is guaranteed to get your attention. Give her time and she'll get used to it once she sees that I'm not going anywhere."

She only hugged him tighter. "Nikolas didn't have to get used to it. That night of our second date he came to my room after you left and he told me that he approved, that you were a good man and you treat me well and he could see even then that I was happy with you. He told me that as long as all of those things stayed the same he was fine with us being together. I - I don't understand why Lulu can't do the same thing."

Kevin wisely decided not to argue the point. He didn't see any positive purpose in helping to contribute to Laura's sorrow and conflicting emotions regarding her youngest child by telling her his own feelings about Lulu which, honestly, weren't too charitable at the moment. "She will," he hastened to assure her. "She will. Once she realizes that acting like a child having a temper tantrum because she wasn't the first to learn important news of yours isn't the best way to get into your good graces -"

Laura snorted and laughed for the first time since showing up at his door, something that pleased Kevin wholeheartedly, not only because he was relieved she wasn't upset with him for disparaging her daughter but because he loved to hear her laugh. "You're not wrong, Kev, but you are sadly underestimating my child's stubbornness and willingness to hold a grudge. I like to think she got that from Luke." He only looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Maybe a little bit from me." She half-heartedly swatted him on the shoulder when he didn't say anything to dispute her claim. "Fine, maybe a lot from me, but don't push it."

She pushed herself up to a sitting position to where she was once again straddling his waist and ducked her head to kiss him and as soon as her warm mouth met his Kevin knew the talking-about-Lulu portion of the evening was over for good, or at least for tonight. In a quick motion that he hadn't been entirely sure he had anymore at his age, Kevin flipped her to where he was on top and she was underneath him with her arms around his neck, desperate for him to kiss her. Which he did, happily, for the next fifteen minutes. It was a miracle that they managed to remain fully clothed as their kissing got progressively more heated, Laura arching her body against him and gasping into his mouth for him to keep doing everything he was doing. Laura's hand grabbed at the button of his jeans and one of his hands tangled in her hair. When she **did** unbutton his jeans and reach for the zipper next Kevin had a feeling their current clothing situation might change as would their venue of where would be the most appropriate place to continue this. Which meant he needed to focus all of his current energy on asking Laura some questions.

What happened instead was his hand sunk deeper into her hair and the words that came out of his mouth were strangled and hoarse with desire and need. "Stay with me. Please, please stay with me." His mouth sucked at her neck. "I want to go further than this if you do. Don't go back to Wyndemere."

Laura was in the process of kissing his neck when she heard what he said and froze. Kevin did too, knowing it was possible he had overstepped and ruined everything. He really needed to break himself of the unfortunate habit of saying every little thought that popped into his head. Unfortunate in that the thoughts only happened when he was kissing Laura like this and every single one of them involved her agreeing to spend the night with him and most of them involved her naked and in his bed. They hadn't talked about this before. He would honestly have rather them be in any position other than the one they were currently in when they had this conversation, but to be frank she started it when she unbuttoned his shirt _and_ his jeans _and_ looked at him like she did, and he owed it to their relationship and especially to her, always to her, that he make sure nothing happened tonight or any other night that she didn't want or wasn't ready for. The fact that he was didn't matter. Kevin closed his eyes and silently cursed himself as he pushed himself up and away from Laura and helped her to sit up, too, so they were facing each other. Her bright blue eyes were filled with confusion and expectation and there was some hurt in there too, and he cursed himself again that his brain-to-mouth impulses were too sudden for him to control.

Another perk of them being friends six months before they dated was that apparently he got a particular look on his face when he was getting ready to apologize and Laura seemed to know it, because she pressed a hand over his mouth. Only to replace her hand with her own mouth a few seconds later. "Ssshh," she murmured. "You're cute when you get nervous, but giving yourself a guilt-trip because you think you offended me isn't cute. You, um, you surprised me."

He reached forward and touched a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. He wasn't about to admit to her how damn badly he wanted to push her back onto that couch and do any number of unmentionable things to her that ended with her screaming his name. "I'm sorry if I startled you," he said quietly. "We haven't talked about it and I don't know if you're ready and if I've ever done anything to make you think that I was putting pressure on you to be ready, then -"

She kissed him, chaste on the cheek to calm down their racing hearts and hormones, and shook her head emphatically no when he looked like he wanted to say more. "Stop it," she whispered fiercely. "You stop that right now, Kevin Collins, stop that right now." They had a conversation about her past on Cassadine Island a couple of months ago and she knew that was where his mind had gone to. _She_ had been the one to reach for him. She wouldn't have him apologizing when he hadn't done anything wrong. "I mean it, Kevin Andrew." Kevin hadn't even known she'd learned his middle name, but apparently she had. Stop thinking you've done something wrong because you haven't. I know what pressure to go farther than what I am comfortable with looks like and not once have you ever done that. And if you would have stopped and listened to me before you went on your self-imposed guilt trip you would have watched me sit here and tell you right now that I want to stay. I really do." It was one of the few times she'd seen him turn that interesting shade of red and privately she thought it adorable that she could affect him that much. "But I can't. Spencer has threatened to mutiny and cut off all my outgoing visits to see you if I wasn't back at a reasonable hour."

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. This was why having a serious talk in the middle of an emotionally charged situation was a bad idea. "God, Laura, when are you going to start living your life for you and not for Spencer or Lulu or Nikolas?"

And now all Kevin could see through the haze of his guilt was Laura's expression-filled blue eyes pooling with tears and he had no excuse for what he had said except the selfish thought of how much he wanted her. He flashed back to earlier that evening when she told him how Lulu often reacted when she was hurt and Kevin saw it first-hand now that Laura was the same way. He saw it right in front of him in how Laura scooted back away from him, crossing her arms over her chest, and her eyes clouded over with - tears, yes, but also anger and uncertainty and hurt at his sudden aggressive change in attitude. "I think it would be best for both of us that I leave now," was all she would say, after a long silence. "I need to think. "Good night, Kevin."

He scrambled off the couch and his hand reached out to tug her wrist before she could make good on her threat to go home. She was angry at him clearly and he needed her to know he hadn't meant that the way it sounded, that he wasn't so insensitive and blinded by his sudden desire for her that he didn't know how much she cared about her children and grandchildren. "No, no, Laura, please let me explain. Don't leave me if you're upset with me. We can drink our wine and watch television." An unspoken _I'll be good, you don't have to leave_ attached itself to the sudden silence.

"Well, that's nice, now you're trying to get me drunk so my inhibitions will be lowered. Is that it? Kevin Andrew Collins, for someone that stopped everything I started earlier and tried to throw psychology in my face, you seem pretty determined to have sex with me now. Now that it's on your timetable we can but I'm too much of an emotional woman to know what **I** want to do with someone I care about?"

Kevin was confused and blindsided. He honestly didn't have the damndest clue where Laura's out of the blue pent-up anger was coming from. It hurt him deeply to think that even in anger she would think that he would put his own physical needs in front of hers. "That's not fair and you know it, Laura, you can't put words in my mouth and expect me to take it. I asked you if I'd done anything to offend you and you very nicely assured me that I hadn't so I need you not to insult me by getting mad at me now for what I did or didn't say. I can't read your mind, in case you've forgotten. I'm not that intellectually advanced."

Laura stepped away from the couch, away from him, and gathered her purse in her hands. "Kevin Collins admitting there's something he doesn't know, that's fantastic. Maybe I should write this down."

Kevin held up his hands. All of his instincts were screaming at him that he wanted to hold her, to touch her, to ask her what was really wrong and what she needed him to do to fix this but his instincts also told him she wouldn't be receptive at all to him touching her. Also obvious by the way she was glaring at him. He put his hands back down at his side resolutely. "Are you at least going to tell me why you're determined to pick a fight with me all of a sudden?"

"I'm not picking a fight, Kevin. I am choosing to leave and walk away before things get worse. Because I care about you, very much, and I don't want things to get worse."

Laura had no choice but to jump back in surprise when Kevin practically flew from beside his couch to the front door, standing in front of it so she couldn't leave and - making sure to watch her eyes and face all the time so he wasn't hurting her - holding her wrists firm in his hands. "Lucy used to do this to me towards the end of our marriage," he admitted quietly, his voice suddenly hollow. "Tell me things on purpose she knew would start a fight and then walk away before we could talk about it, and whatever she was mad at me about festered until it came out later in an even bigger fight. I don't - Laura, I don't want you to start doing that to me. Please, please don't do this to me, I won't be able to take it again. If you are upset, if I assumed too much or said something to make you angry, you have to tell me so we can work it out. Please. Don't walk away from me."

It hurt Laura deep inside, a dull, aching hurt, that the demise of Kevin's marriage to Lucy had scarred him so much that his first thought when she was mad at him was that she could ever be mad at him enough to purposefully hurt him the way his ex-wife had. "I'm not Lucy," she whispered, a little bit sad. "I'm not her, Kevin. Your marriage to her has nothing to do with you and me, except that sometimes you're as scared as I am about starting over. And, if you'll excuse me, I really should be going. Spencer's waiting for me to help him with a school project."

Kevin sighed in defeat and knew better than to call her on whether or not that was a lie, because he seemingly had offended her enough for one evening. Not that he knew how he had offended her exactly because she wouldn't tell him, she only got pissed and threatened to leave. If this was a preview of how it was going to be between them in the future when they fought, it wasn't a good sign. "Will you at least let me call you tomorrow?"

Laura looked down. Apparently he was giving in and was simply going to let her walk out of his door even though they were in the middle of their first fight. "No offer to drive me to the docks?" she asked timidly. "So your old-fashioned charm goes away when I'm upset with you. I get it."

Kevin swiped his keys from the kitchen counter and muttered something to himself in French he knew Laura wouldn't be able to translate. Maybe she'd talk to him on the drive to the docks, if he didn't turn on the radio and there wasn't anything else to do. "Give me a minute to grab my wallet and we can go."

Except by the time he got back from finding his wallet Laura was on her phone. She didn't look up from her phone until she was done and even then she barely looked at him. "I'll wait in the cafe across the street for Elizabeth to come get me. I don't think it would do either of us any good to talk to each other about this until we've cooled down."

"Until **we've** cooled down?" Kevin couldn't help himself from gaping at her incredulously. "This is a one-person argument you started out of the blue and you won't tell me what it is you're mad about in the first place even after I've asked. I hardly consider that a productive dialogue, Laura." He threw his keys back somewhere towards the kitchen. "You might be right. Maybe it's best that I don't try and call you until tomorrow. But remember that I do have reservations on Friday for that Italian place you said you wanted to go to and those reservations weren't easy to get. We're running out of places to go outside Port Charles. Do you think you'll be over being mad at me by then?"

Over the course of the last two months the two of them had gone to Kelly's twice for brunch - on weekdays, when there wouldn't be too many other customers for the breakfast crowd and, Kevin suspected, the main criteria for Laura was it was less of a chance of them running into Lulu - and had met at The Floating Rib one night after Kevin got off work when he didn't feel as though he had the mental fortitude to cook himself dinner, but the majority of their dates had been outside Port Charles. He'd had to do a little research to find new restaurants that Laura would like, but the absolute freedom it gave them to work on their new dating relationship and interact with each other like a normal couple would without the prying eyes of everybody in Port Charles was worth it to the both of them.

And Kevin wouldn't ever have dared to say this to Laura out loud, but the fact that he could kiss her anytime he wanted to on any of their dates without being worried that someone who was acquainted with either of them would be watching or filming them? Definitely worth the price in extra gas that it took to drive Laura and himself outside of town.

Laura looked everywhere but at Kevin, purposefully. "Yes," she said quietly. "Please don't cancel our reservations on my account." She sighed. "I know I'm sending you mixed signals all over the place but - I want to see you on Friday. I just can't stay tonight and it's easier for me to get mad at you and get you mad at me than to tell you why."

Kevin nodded shortly. If she was still mad he was still mad too. "I don't like it that you don't want to talk to me, Laura, but I can't make you. For Pete's sake, it took me this long for you to talk to me this much about Lulu. If you'll let me I'll pick you up at Wyndemere at seven on Friday. I will wait for you to call me tomorrow and I hope you do."

He was nervous around her now, contained, guarded, and she didn't like that even though she knew it was all her doing, fighting with him when he hadn't done anything wrong. She wanted him as much as he wanted her and at least he had been the one with the courage to say it first. Laura reached for his hand but at the last moment stopped herself and went for the front doorknob instead. "Spencer will be much better-behaved, I promise."

For their second date Kevin had insisted on proving to her family that his intentions were honorable and picked Laura up at Wyndemere for their date - no matter Laura's protests - and before Laura had been able to corral her young grandson Spencer had answered the door. And had promptly proceeded to tell Kevin in no uncertain terms that his grandmother was very special and he expected her to be treated as such, and thus there would be no hanky-panky on the date and Kevin would have her home at a respectable hour. If Laura could have melted through the floor by sheer force of will at that moment, she would have. But Kevin had taken it in stride and spoken to Spencer very seriously and told him that Laura was very special to him too and he would treat her properly. He'd have her home at a reasonable hour, Spencer could count on that. And in a completely expected reaction, he ignored the hanky-panky portion of the conversation.

"I don't care about Spencer right now, I care about you."

His unexpected kindness to her that she didn't deserve, especially not after what she had said to him, brought tears to her eyes. "I need to go," she whispered. "Elizabeth will be here soon."

"Laura, wait!" Kevin reached for the doorknob to open it for her and resolutely stuck his other hand in his pocket so he wouldn't be tempted to grab her around the waist and take her in his arms, but all it took was his hand barely brushing against hers and that was enough for him to forget everything. His self-control when it came to her was embarrassingly low. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, that was never my intention. I just - get caught up at looking at you. You're beautiful." He wrapped his arms around her and lowered his mouth to hers before she had the chance to get angry at him again. Almost immediately he deepened the kiss and she kissed him back with equal if not greater intensity. The hand that wasn't cupping the back of his neck clutched at his still-open shirt and he buried his face in her neck and smirked when she whimpered and pressed herself close to him. Seconds later he was pressing a line of tender little kisses down her neck and collarbone and she was moaning into his mouth and her breathing quickened to short gasping sounds. She started to rid him of his shirt, whispering his name in conjunction with what sounded like pleasepleaseplease. "I'm so sorry, Laura, please don't be angry with me."

Laura blinked and slowly pulled away from him, releasing her hands from his shirt and around his neck and stepped fully out of his embrace, still unsure of him being so close. "Like I said earlier I think it's best for both of us that I go home now," she murmured. Her voice shook with emotion and Kevin took into account that she didn't sound angry at him anymore. "And that's why," she whispered. "I can't be alone with you tonight, Kevin. We clearly want each other like that, but...I'm not ready to stay. I thought I was but I'm not."

"That is okay," he told her, seriously. He let his hands rest lightly on her waist and leaned in enough to where his forehead nearly touched hers. "Thank you for telling me the truth. Laura, I meant it when I said I don't ever want to pressure you. I need to make sure you know that. You are too important to me for us not to be honest with each other about when we take that step." His mouth brushed her cheek. "But I hope you'll let me know when you are ready."

Kevin pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead when Elizabeth texted Laura to say she'd be there in five minutes. He still didn't know exactly what the outcome of their fight was. He was disappointed with her that she had chosen to start a fight with him and use that as her reason for leaving, but she had admitted the truth just now. That hadn't been her first choice, though, her first choice had been to run. He didn't like it that she didn't feel like she could talk to him. Laura's phone buzzed with a new text - from Elizabeth, he was sure - and Kevin told her that it was on her to call him tomorrow but as far as he knew they were still on for Friday for dinner. She nodded.

He watched her open her mouth like she wanted very much to say something to him but at the last minute she shook her head and headed for his door. "Thanks for listening to me about Lulu. You did help me feel better." Then she was gone.

Kevin kept his front door opened until she turned the corner and he could no longer see her - he would call her later to reassure himself that she got back to Wyndemere safely, he should have taken her himself - and the second he closed his door and locked it he leaned back against it and took a unsteady breath. So what he'd made her feel better about Lulu. He had made her feel other emotions too and that was the problem, because all of those things he'd made her feel she had _definitely_ made him feel. Unquestionably. Laura had made him feel a lot of different things in a very short period of time, some things he hadn't felt with a woman in a long, long time, not since he could last remember it being good with Lucy. He hadn't felt as good as he felt tonight with Laura in his arms and her legs around his waist, that was for sure.

Kevin muttered some words in French he hadn't used in a long time and ran a hand over his face. He looked across the room at his now empty apartment and the wine they had barely touched and saw a glittering of silver and blue on the floor. Laura's bracelet and he had a pretty good idea of how it had gotten there, what with how they were fooling around on the couch earlier. He sucked in a second unsteady breath. Dragging his brain down this line of thought was a bad, bad idea. Now he remembered her straddling his waist and couldn't stop thinking about how Laura's body had felt molded into his so closely. How he'd been surprised she didn't hear his heart beating through his chest when she unbuttoned his shirt and kissed him slow and deliberate down his chest. How his sole intention for a five-minute stretch had been to find all the spots he hadn't known about before that drove her crazy and hear all of her sounds that proved to him how much she had liked what he was doing to her. What it would have been like if she'd stayed, how long until they reached the point of no return and she asked him to take her to his bedroom. How, for all the times Laura had come to his apartment the last two months even if it was to be sad about Lulu, when he watched her reach for a wine glass in his kitchen or heard her surprised little laugh when he picked her up from behind and tickled her and ultimately surprised her with a kiss, Kevin felt at home in a way he hadn't felt in his apartment in a long time. Like he wasn't meant to be alone forever, like Lucy wasn't the only woman for him. He thought about how well Laura fit into his embrace and his heart and his life, like she belonged there, like he had been waiting for her ever since he'd signed the papers to divorce Lucy.

He thought about how his secretary had even started to be able to judge what kind of mood he'd be in that day by whether or not he'd spoken to Laura, and how it made Kevin happy that Laura was a frequent enough visitor to his office that Sofia knew her by name.

He closed his eyes and wasn't very surprised to hear his voice wobble when he told himself out loud to stop this current line of thought **immediately**. Kevin ran his hand over his face again, begging himself to calm down. He didn't want to do this here rushed and by himself, not without Laura. Pictures of Laura flooded his mind. Laura on her knees between his legs with that damned seductive voice she did so well saying his name over and over - yes, he had been the proud recipient of that voice more than once in the privacy of his apartment or a far-secluded corner of Wyndemere and it had always immediately preceded a fantastic kiss. Laura slowly unzipping his jeans and popping the button, breathing his name and telling him how much she'd wanted to do this to him for so long.

Kevin bowed his head and swallowed back the part of him that wanted to scream out her name. One hand grabbed his thigh and the other fumbled and shook and reached faster than it had in three years for the button on his jeans and the zipper. This had been a horrible, horribly ill-advised idea. He was grateful he was in the privacy of his own home because he was going to make a mess and he knew it. He couldn't stop it from happening. Because now Laura was in his head telling him all the things she wanted him to do to her and a specific part of his anatomy was most definitely awake.

He was supposed to be a gentleman, goddamnit. He was supposed to respect her enough and be considerate of her enough not to reduce the overwhelming feelings he had for her to simple biology and hormones and lust. He shouldn't be fantasizing about her like this because he knew nothing he did here would ever compare to the first time he and Laura made love for real. Kevin fully unzipped his jeans and grunted Laura's name and he might have murmured a pleasepleaseplease like she had before, he wouldn't remember. For the first time in over three and a half years Kevin was powerless to the strength of his need for physical release. He would allow himself this release just once and then he would stop. He would come down from his Laura-induced high and he would respect her enough not to fantasize about her like this again. It went without saying that he would never, ever tell her about this, either, not if he wanted to date her again.

Kevin breathed quicker and grunted her name faster, harder, longer, until the all-consuming and all-powerful sensations running through him came together all at once and his grunt became a strangled cry. It took ten minutes for him to try different breathing patterns until he found one to calm his racing heart. Oh, Laura, he thought. Oh, Laura, when we do this for real I'm going to make it fantastic for you, I swear.

It was all he could do to get himself off the floor and head straight for the bathroom. If he couldn't have Laura in his bed just yet that had been the perfect escape in order to preserve his sanity.

Kevin stripped out of his jeans and boxers. He left his shirt on and went immediately to the shower where he stayed perfectly still under the water for a good twenty minutes, waiting for the water to get ice cold.


	6. Chapter 6

Elizabeth didn't hesitate in giving it to Laura with both barrels on the entire drive to the docks and Laura stayed quiet for the most part, knowing there wasn't a good enough excuse for how she had just literally walked out on Kevin and most especially the things she had said to him. She couldn't even articulate her reasoning to Elizabeth if she could hardly articulate it to herself.

She wanted Kevin, she wanted to make love to him and be with him in the most trusting of ways like that, just as much as he wanted her. She wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in his bed with his arms around her and wake up with his arms still around her, but she couldn't see herself taking that step with Kevin and letting herself be so happy with him when Lulu was so obviously unhappy. Laura turned to the car window so Elizabeth couldn't ask questions. Kevin was right. She didn't want to admit it but he was. It was time she started prioritizing herself and her own happiness no matter what her daughter might think. And, despite the last half hour, Kevin was first on the list of people that made her happy.

Elizabeth left her on the docks with a stern admonishment to at least text Kevin to tell him she got back to Wyndemere safe and to call him tomorrow and apologize for what she had done. Laura thanked her for the last-minute ride and promised to text him when she got home.

The first instinct Laura had when she woke up the next morning was to call Kevin. He'd appreciated the text she'd sent him when she got back to Wyndemere the night before and said that it was late, they both better be getting to bed. He hadn't sounded like himself and had cut off conversation quickly. Laura suspected he had been still mad at her. But today was a new day and if he was willing to listen she wanted desperately to see him face-to-face and apologize. Maybe if he wasn't busy she could meet him for lunch somewhere close to the hospital or she could even pick something up to-go and bring it to his office and they could eat there. (The privacy of his office got her vote because they could kiss and not have to worry about wandering hands. Whatever allowed her to spend time with him worked for her.) She was pretty sure she knew all or most of his favorite orders and could get him something he liked without having to call him and ask him what he wanted. Laura rolled over in bed and reached for her glasses, a smile spreading ear-to-ear when she saw the little envelope that signified she had a new text message. He couldn't still be that mad at her or else he wouldn't have texted her and it thrilled her and humbled her again that no matter that they had fought horribly only eleven hours earlier he had still reached out to her. He hadn't forgotten their game.

She knew without even looking the message was from Kevin. It was always from Kevin this early in the morning.

Laura lost count of the number of mornings the last two months that she'd woken up to reach for her phone and found a good-morning text from Kevin, complete with some odd and random factoid he'd heard on one of those Ripley's Believe It Or Not programs. (He'd tried to play it off as his daughter being the main reason he watched the show but she'd been at his apartment one night when one of the reruns was showing and quickly she learned the show was one of his guilty pleasures. It was adorable to see him so geeked out and excited and she still couldn't bring herself to tease him about it.) Or a long voicemail on his lunch break or a text in between his patient sessions and afternoons of paperwork to tell her nothing except that he was thinking about her and he missed her. It had shocked her completely a couple of weeks ago when Kevin had called her from the grocery store saying he was standing in the aisle that had all the coffee and it had occurred to him just then that he didn't know if the coffee he had for himself at home was the kind she liked. It had taken her even longer to realize he was asking her what type of coffee _she_ liked so he could buy it and have it at _his_ home. When she had finally found her voice and asked what he thought he was doing wanting to buy her favorite coffee for his apartment, he'd easily said that he wanted her to be comfortable in his apartment when she came over and that included creature comforts like coffee.) It had all been a stark reminder of how different being in a relationship with Kevin Collins would be, but in a good way. In a wonderful way, Laura thought as she swiped to unlock her phone. It was wonderful to have Kevin showing her how much he cared about her, and in turn it wasn't scary as much anymore for her to admit how much she cared about him. Cared was enough of a word for now for how she felt about him; she didn't want to think yet about those other words, three to be exact. She thought she might get there someday in the future, but not yet.

Laura wasn't surprised to watch the phone update itself after she unlocked it and watched as the single text message icon turned into several, but the time-stamp on the first message did give her pause. It was Thursday morning, Thursday was a weekday. Kevin took his professional commitments and thus his sleep during the week very seriously and it was a rare occasion he stayed up past eleven, what was he doing awake at three in the morning and texting her? Of course if he needed something urgent he could have called but surely he had to have known she'd be asleep at that time and not in the mood for idle chit-chat.

She clicked on Kevin's name in her text message inbox and his first message appeared right away. _Laura, I'm leaving Port Charles. I'm so sorry to do this over the phone after what happened between us last night, but -_

Tears immediately pricked her eyes and she felt her heart hammering beneath her ribs. No. No, no, no. She'd had so much fun getting to know Kevin these past eight months and dating him for the last two - he was the only person to make it bearable to relive all of her Cassadine memories the way she was forced to in order to help Kevin uncover the meaning behind Helena's mystery clues - that this couldn't be how it ended between them. Not because they'd had a fight. Not because of her. It seemed like it was going to take forever for her to open the rest of her messages from him and for as long as it took her to do so she was without a doubt certain this was his way of breaking up with her.

But it took her only a few seconds to close her eyes and conjure up Kevin's face in her mind and remind herself that she was being stupid, that he was better than that and she was too important to him to warrant such an impersonal breakup. He said last night that she was important to him. Kevin was good to her, he made her happy and he made her smile and he made her laugh. But above all of those wonderful things was the equally wonderful thing that he was kind. Gentlemanly and courteous.. Old-fashioned and romantic, especially these last few weeks in the privacy of his apartment. All qualities she wasn't used to in a man but she wanted to think she understood Kevin well enough to understand that if he wanted to break up with her he'd do it in person and not over the phone. She didn't want him to break up with her. Not so soon, certainly, but she wasn't sure that she would be able to be okay with him breaking up with her ever.

She scrolled through the entirety of the message chain frantically, they were all time-stamped within a ten-minute period, and as soon as she read them she wiped her eyes and felt so embarrassed and self-absorbed to think he was worrying about her at all when he had written those messages. _Something's wrong with my daughter, I have to go be with her. It's three o'clock in the morning and Christina called me sobbing so hard she couldn't even talk to me but her roommate took the phone and told me she's been throwing up for two days straight. She's sick, Laura. I'm booking myself the first flight to Paris as I write this and I don't know how long I'll be gone. I'm sorry for dropping this on you last-minute but whenever I get back I'll come to you and we can talk about last night. I'll call you or text you when I can. Please get in touch with Monica Quartermaine for me and tell her I'm taking emergency personal days. I'll call her myself but want someone to know as soon as possible and I'm going right to Christina when the plane lands._

Another message, time-stamped twenty minutes later than the others. _Will you take a rain check for that date on Friday?_

And another message, two minutes after that one. _I care about you, Laura. Very much. I promise we'll talk soon._

She called Kevin right away without knowing what time it was in Paris or if he was even there yet and his phone went right to voicemail. Laura wrote a short text and told him she'd talk to Monica first thing today and tell her what was going on and that she was there for him for whatever else he needed her to do. She told him to check his email when he could, she'd send him a longer message there where she could tell him everything she needed to tell him and not have to worry about limiting character requirements.

Laura immediately created an alarm to go off in an hour to remind her to call Monica, and then pulled up her email to type up a long message to Kevin. The most important thing was to tell him that she cared about him very much and she hoped his daughter would be happy and healthy soon. She knew he and Lucy must be worried about her, but Laura was confident Christina would be fine. (She didn't want to think about the alternative for Kevin's sake.) She went on to tell him that when he got back they'd have that long talk he wanted and they could absolutely have a re-do of their date when he came home, if he still wanted. She needed Kevin to know most of all that he could call her anytime if he wanted or needed to talk, no matter what time it was for her. Kevin had been there for her faithfully the last eight months, he deserved for her to be there for him now. Especially if something was seriously wrong with his and Lucy's daughter. (Laura rightly expected that Lucy would soon be in Paris, too, but tried not to think too much about Lucy and Kevin together for what might be a significant amount of time in the city of love and romance.) Laura knew how frightened she would be if Lulu or Nikolas called her in the middle of the night because they were hurt or in the middle of some kind of crisis, she couldn't even imagine how hard it was for Kevin to have Christina halfway across the world. Lucky was in Ireland but he had always been independent like his father. Lulu and Nikolas were here in Port Charles and still she worried about them more than was probably needed.

A few days turned into a week which turned into three weeks and Laura was diligent about having her phone charged and with her at all times. Kevin had answered her initial email within hours that first day and she had assured him she'd gotten everything squared away with Monica. They talked on the phone at least every other day though she was mindful of the time difference and the cost of international phone calls so she always tried to keep it under ten minutes. The rest of their talking was done through texting and old-fashioned email. She and Kevin texted so much she hoped Nikolas didn't happen upon her cell phone bill for the month.

Kevin had been in Paris for three days when Laura got an urgent text from him asking her to please, please find Lucy and have her call him immediately. Laura got more worried for Christina and Kevin and even for Lucy when he said that but Kevin wouldn't tell her anything else but they were going to stay in France until she recovered. Laura was pleasantly surprised that he even thought to run his plans by her and keep her updated on when he planned to be home. He certainly didn't need her permission to care for his daughter.

Something did happen out of the ordinary while Kevin was away that Laura kept meaning to ask him about. She had chalked it up at first to Lucy being stressed out about her daughter being so far away from her while sick but the more she thought about it the more she wanted to tell Kevin about it when he got home. But not yet. She kept their conversations short and encouraging and promised him she'd be there waiting for him when he felt he was ready to come back to Port Charles. It wasn't her business or her place - Lucy was Christina's mother and deserved to be kept in the loop - but Lucy hadn't been very nice to her. The first time Kevin brought Lucy into the conversation when he returned she would mention it.

Laura kept herself busy the rest of the time Kevin was gone and went through several drafts before finishing a handwritten letter to her daughter. She would drive by Lulu and Dante's place and stick it through the mailbox at a time Lulu was sure to be at Crimson with Maxie or at PCPD headquarters with Dante. She had time to think with Kevin away and agreed with him that she needed to prioritize him and their relationship. This would be a good start.

The look of surprise that flashed across his face when he saw her waiting for him at the baggage claim was well worth the worry she'd had initially about whether or not she should pick him up from the airport. The way he immediately started walking faster to close the distance between them and enveloped her in a hug and murmured soft enough only for her to hear that he missed her so much and was so happy to see her here waiting for him meant the world to her. As did the way his hand reached out for hers and pulled her away from the hustle and bustle of the airport crowd to give her a proper hello kiss.

Kevin had told her on the drive back to Port Charles that he had spoken to Monica and wasn't scheduled to return to work until the next week so he had two days off in addition to the weekend and he would very much like to spend a good chunk of that time with her. Laura squeezed his hand in silent agreement; she wasn't going to say no to spending time with him. She wanted to talk to him as soon as possible about the important decisions she made while he was away. Talk, she reminded herself, talk. They needed to talk first and then she could show him the rest.

He didn't want to talk about Christina, she noticed. She also had noticed that Lucy had arrived back in Port Charles a week before Kevin had and hadn't spoken to her once.

He picked her up at Wyndemere later that day and from the docks they had a wonderful forty-minute car ride to the restaurant - the same Italian restaurant he'd had to cancel on her three weeks earlier - where they easily caught up on all the little things about each other's lives that hadn't made it into their emails, texts, or phone calls. When they got to the restaurant and pulled into the parking lot, however, Kevin had intentionally parked them away from other cars and unbuckled his seatbelt and hers, pulling her into his arms for what quickly turned into intense and heavy kissing. Laura only hesitated for a brief second before wrapping her arms around his neck and they proceeded to make out like teenagers - in his car, no less - for ten minutes. She attributed it to not seeing each other in person for three weeks why he was clinging to her a little tighter and holding her like he was afraid that if he let go she might disappear, but she wasn't going to say no to kissing him. He had a look in his eyes she hadn't seen before when he finally let her go and reached for the handle on his car door and she couldn't explain the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that he hadn't told her everything that had happened in France.

Kevin and Laura walked hand-in-hand to the restaurant, Kevin immediately seeking out her hand to curl his fingers around hers when she had closed her car door, and Laura took the few seconds she had while Kevin was speaking to the hostess about their reservation to gently take away her hand and reach inside her purse for her phone to turn it off. Tonight was going to be all about Kevin in more ways than one and she for sure didn't want a repeat of their first date. She went to turn off the phone and blinked in surprise when she saw the message on her screen from Elizabeth Webber, in all capital letters. _IMPORTANT AND URGENT RE: YOUR DATE WITH KEVIN. PLEASE CALL ME._

Laura stepped into a tucked-away corner, called Elizabeth and spoke with her for a few minutes, and hung up the phone and tucked it in her purse. Kevin was waiting for her and she told him everything was fine. Because it would be.

Laura might not have known more than the bare basics Kevin had told her about what happened between him and Lucy at the Nurses' Ball, but she knew enough. She knew enough to know that, despite Kevin's pleas to her to get in touch with Lucy for Christina's sake and that Lucy would be joining him in Paris, his ex-wife's infidelity and shameless flaunting of the affair had deeply wounded Kevin to the point where friendship between the former spouses was out of the question and they didn't talk unless it concerned Christina. She also knew that Kevin was one of the kindest and gentlest men she'd ever met and she was determined to protect him tonight if what Elizabeth had told her was true. Lucy simply wouldn't get the chance to get close enough to Kevin to ever be able to hurt him again, not if Laura had anything to say about it.

"We could have done this another night, you know," she murmured twenty minutes later, after they had been seated and gotten their drinks and been served their appetizers - stuffed mushrooms to share. The waitress had just left the table after taking their entree orders and Kevin was as polite and well-mannered as always but Laura knew something was bothering him, and she was pretty sure that something involved Christina. She would give him the same respect he always gave her though, and wait until he was ready to share. "Not that you're not good company, but you're quiet tonight. Is the time difference and the jet lag catching up to you?"

Kevin shook his head and used his knife and fork to split the last stuffed mushroom between them. "No jet lag and I honestly don't think I slept enough the entire three weeks to even notice the time change. Lucy and I were with her in the hospital and then when she was released we alternated one of us doing her errands and one of us staying with her in the apartment so she was never alone. Lucy and I slept in different bedrooms, don't worry. Lucy actually left a couple of days after Christina got released and so for the last two weeks it was just me. Believe me, I slept from the minute the plane left the tarmac in Paris to when it touched down at the airport here." He laughed a little. "Christina and I must have stayed awake until three AM watching her favorite movies on Netflix and while she is in the age range to be able to pull all-nighters and be fully functioning at eight, I am sorry to report that that I am too old for that sort of thing." Kevin passed Laura her half of the last stuffed mushroom. "I answered your question and then some, my dear. You, on the other hand, have very admirably ignored every one of my attempts to get you to talk about Lulu and whether things have changed on that front since you wrote her that letter."

"Yes, I have, and a smarter man would take the hint to stop asking," she said lightly, taking a sip of her wine. He got the same clouded expression in his eyes he'd had for most of the evening so far and Laura reached across the table for his hand, stroking gently the inside of his palm with her fingers. "Hey, Kev, look at me," she murmured. "We never were able to get into it much when we talked, but is Christina okay? She must be because you felt comfortable leaving her but I got the feeling when I talked to you that it was worse than you thought it would be." Laura knew how scared he had been because that had been one of the first things he admitted to her when they first were able to connect on the phone - how he hadn't felt that helpless as a father in a very long time and how it terrified him that something might have been wrong that he wouldn't have been able to fix just because he and Lucy weren't Christina's biological parents. "Kevin? They did say it was just food poisoning, right?"

Kevin sighed, and Laura thought sadly that there must be something otherworldly fascinating about the tablecloth pattern the way he kept his focus on it and nothing else. "The most severe case of food poisoning he'd seen. She was in the hospital for four days and I don't think Lucy or I slept more than two hours at a time for those four days. For the first two days she was there they couldn't figure out what was wrong and kept running all these tests -"

Laura continued to stroke his wrist with her fingers. "There's nothing quite like the overwhelming fear you get when your child is in the hospital, is there?"

Kevin didn't let go of her hand and Laura knew there was more she hadn't yet been told. She squeezed his hand in silent support and waited for him to say it. "When I first got her to the hospital she was asked by the first nurse we saw if she was sexually active. She said yes and their first action was to run a pregnancy test because they thought she might be having a miscarriage or it was an ectopic pregnancy." He squeezed Laura's hand even tighter. "Ectopic pregnancy, Laura, I didn't even know she had a boyfriend or was having sex."

"But it wasn't, right? She's not pregnant and it was just supremely awful food poisoning?" she asked after a few seconds of silence, cautiously. She wanted Kevin to be able to focus on the part where his daughter was healthy and happy now. "She's not pregnant?"

Her words didn't make him look any less miserable. "No. She's not, but just the idea that it was a possibility…" He struggled to come up with the right words. "I don't care how old she is, Laura, she's still my little girl. I don't want her to be old enough to have sex."

Laura hesitated. "She's twenty-four years old, Kevin," she said quietly. "I'm sorry to say that she's an adult and doesn't need your permission. She's old enough and I'm sure if she's anything like you she's responsible enough to make the right decision for her and be safe." She was quiet for a few moments while she waited for him to say something and when he didn't she hesitated once more before she said anything. "You texted me one day that Lucy couldn't deal with seeing Christina in the hospital because it brought back bad memories." Laura brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles softly. "Clearly Lucy isn't the only one that had bad memories about something. What happened, Kevin?"

Kevin shook his head. "I will tell you one day, I promise, but not now and not here. It's not something I like to talk about." His face brightened. "But, you know, when Lucy and I brought Christina back to her apartment and we had to wait on her hand and foot for a few days - she'll tell you she didn't but I will maintain to my dying day that Christina enjoyed bossing us around way too much," he laughed. "Lucy and I were on our best behavior but I think it hurt her feelings a little bit that Christina wanted me a whole lot more than she wanted her. The two of them haven't been close for a couple of years, but Christina practically had a panic attack those first few days if I tried to leave the room. It reminded me of when she was little and I tried to get her to take her naps." He sighed and shook his head again, staring at Laura. "I'm sorry, honey, I don't know why I'm telling you all of this."

Laura found herself smiling at the picture in her head of Kevin unsuccessfully trying to get his toddler daughter down for a nap and not being able to leave the room because Christina wanted her daddy, and didn't have any doubts whatsoever that Kevin must have been an incredible father. She was all of a sudden hit with an unexpected pang of regret that she and Kevin had found each other late in life that a pregnancy and parenthood wouldn't ever be in the cards for them. He would be so good with another child, as good as he was with his daughter.

"Your subconscious must be telling you that you want to talk about it," she said matter-of-factly, enjoying entirely too much the look of amused surprise on his face. "I like listening to you when you talk about psychiatry and I promise some of what you talk about does sink in," she laughed. The waitress approached to bring their food and once they had their meals in front of them and Laura offered Kevin one of her shrimps she opened her mouth again. "You brought up Lucy four times in that conversation just now so I'm taking it as a sign. I promised myself that if you brought up her name I would tell you. Kevin, I don't want to be the woman that can't handle the fact that you have an ex-wife but - something happened while you were gone."

He immediately looked up from his plate. Laura didn't strike him as the jealous type and she wasn't sounding jealous, but sometimes with women you never knew. She was still holding his left hand so that had to be a positive sign. "Tell me," he encouraged her. "Laura, if something happened with Lucy while I was with my daughter, please tell me. I want to know if she did anything to upset you."

Laura sighed. If only he knew. "Kevin, believe me, I know she's your ex-wife and she's Christina's mother, she's made that quite clear to me. I know you have to have some type of relationship with her. I understand all of that and I honor it, really I do. I don't want to cause trouble. But last week I was at the hospital and I don't know how but Lucy found me, and she cornered me in one of the back hallways -" A smile tugged at her mouth. "It was the back hallway where you kissed me for the first time, I don't think she knew that."

Kevin stopped mid-bite and swallowed, holding up his hand. His instincts were telling him to go across to her side of the booth and hold her but because they were in a public place he restrained himself. His voice was outwardly pleasant, but steely and determined. "I will call her and speak to her. Please tell me she did not put her hands on you. Christina tells me she's having problems with me getting back into dating after so long."

"Oh, Kevin, no, babe, she didn't hurt me physically. I think she assumes I have a more significant relationship with Christina then I do. She took offense to the fact that I was the one to find her and tell her to call you when you needed to get a hold of her for Christina's sake, and she asked me why I thought it was my place to deliver along your messages. She also wanted me to tell her why Christina wanted you specifically to stay with her in Paris and not her. I told her that was best a conversation she should be having with you because you're her father." Laura glanced at him. "I hoped that would be okay with you. I didn't know what else it was my right to say. I don't think she liked it when I said that, but hey, I didn't like being bombarded in the hallway when all I was there to do was pick up my prescription, so we're even."

Kevin leaned across the booth to give her a quick kiss to stop her rambling, something neither of them felt entirely comfortable doing on their Port Charles dates even now, two and a half months into their relationship. One of the many reasons they spent the majority of their dating time outside the city. "I promise you that I will speak to her as soon as possible. I asked you to find her and tell her to call me because she wasn't answering my calls and I should have expected her to put you in the middle. I'm sorry. I'm sorry she she brought you into the middle of this and I'm sorry if she scared you. All you really need to know is that when she and I divorced one of the few things we agreed on was that we needed to make it as easy on Christina as possible. Let's just say that when she found out what her mother did and who she cheated on me with she took my side in a big way and her relationship with her mother hasn't been the same since. Even now when Christina is hurt or upset or needs advice…"

"...she wants you and not her mother," Laura finished. She took a bite of her food and kept her eye on the door. There was a reason she had insisted on sitting on this side of the booth. She'd have to remember to thank Elizabeth later for warning her so she could keep an eye on Kevin. "Honestly, Kev, and I'm sorry if I'm overstepping or I'm too blunt, but I can't say I disagree."

"If you ever do overstep I'll let you know, but overstepping is much more Lucy's style than yours. Forgive me but I don't want to talk about her. We have been apart for three weeks and I missed you." Laura's bright smile and sparkling eyes warmed his heart. "I want to talk about you and me and everything you've wanted to tell me since I've been gone. You mentioned one night on the phone that Dante and Lulu were looking for a new house?"

She nodded and twirled a bite of his pasta around her fork, blushing slightly when he pushed the plate towards her. "They put an offer in on a nice little house not far from the PCPD. It has a good-sized yard for Rocco and the dog and they wanted three bedrooms because they are trying to have another baby. It's a cute house, Dante showed me the pictures." She refused to think about how the only reason she knew this at all was because her son-in-law had called her and showed her the pictures, not because Lulu had told her or even asked for her opinion. Laura knew this was Lulu's way of getting back at her by withholding her own special information, but Lulu would just have to get with the program because Laura couldn't remember being this happy in a long time and didn't see herself giving Kevin up anytime soon. "Didn't I tell you all of this? At least about them looking for a house?"

"Oh, I'm sure you did, but as I said earlier I barely slept when Christina was in the hospital and Lucy left a few days after we got her home so it was two weeks of being a single parent to a very sick child. And Christina isn't the most tolerant person to be around when she's sick. So it's entirely possible you told me this story on one of my most exhausted nights and I blanked it out. Sorry." He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. "Though I am glad Lulu is talking to you again."

"She isn't," Laura said quietly. "The letter I wrote her didn't help. I only know about the house offer because of Dante and they started seriously talking about trying for a second child months ago. As far as I know they haven't even started Lulu on hormones yet." He looked confused and she explained to him how Lulu being frozen by Stavros - credit to him and the time they had spent together talking out all things Cassadine that Kevin hardly flinched at the idea of her daughter being _forcibly frozen and having her eggs taken without her consent_ by the very same Cassadine that had raped and kidnapped Laura - had done irrevocable damage to Lulu's fertility and how this one remaining embryo they had (fully a biological Lulu and Dante child, she assured him) was their last chance to have a baby and for Lulu to be pregnant. Laura heard herself confessing to him that she hoped so much that she and Lulu could work it out between them soon, that she didn't know if she'd be able to take it if the eventual embryo transfer worked and Lulu told other friends and family she was pregnant before she told her. Kevin didn't say a word while she collected herself and murmured that he was sure it wouldn't come to that. Lulu would come around, he promised her softly. If worse came to worse he'd talk to her himself.

Laura absently ran her thumb across the flesh between his thumb and index finger. "Thank you. But I don't want to talk about Lulu right now, either. Would you put your fork down and look at me, please?" she whispered. She set down her own fork. "Kevin, I need to apologize. Profusely. That night before you left for Paris - what happened between us, you asked me to stay the night and I treated you terribly. I ran away when I shouldn't have when all I wanted to do was to stay. I know we both said some things we shouldn't have...mostly me...but when I woke up that morning and saw that text from you saying you were leaving Port Charles, before I read the other ones, Kevin, it broke my heart because I thought you were breaking up with me. And I would have completely deserved it."

Concern etched on his face. "Laura, I didn't intend for you to think..."

She smiled. "I know you didn't, but you know me, I think the worst about everything. Kevin, I was so worried for you and for Christina while you were in France, but - I missed you so much. And it wasn't just the physical between us that I missed even though that part is _great._ You've become my best friend and I missed being able to talk to you and see you in person every day. I also have no problem admitting that I did miss kissing you and how it feels when we're alone to have you hold me." Both of their plates of food stayed untouched for the moment, unnoticed. "I thought about it a lot while you were gone and I hope very much that if I ask nicely the offer you made me that night is still on the table." She stroked the inside of his palm. "Because you have the next three days off and I intend to spend at least two of those days with you." She broke off abruptly and happened to see behind Kevin's head to the front of the restaurant where two people were being led to a table on the other side of the restaurant but still in full view of theirs if Laura looked ahead or Kevin turned around and she couldn't have that. "Trust me, please," she muttered. She stood up in her side of the booth, grabbed for Kevin's tie with one hand and the back of his neck with the other, and kissed him hard on the mouth. Kevin apparently got over his surprise awfully quickly and kissed her back and she only pulled away when she remembered what this was for and that they were in a public place. She would be able to kiss him like that all she wanted later - she hoped. If he was still in the mood. "Hey, eyes on me, babe," she murmured, touching his cheek before reluctantly sitting back down. "I'm right here, we're on a great date, don't look at anybody or anywhere but me."

Kevin's eyes finally focused back on hers and he gave her a crooked half-grin, that special look she liked to think now was reserved just for her. "And here I was worried that I'd messed up so badly the night before I left you wouldn't kiss me like that again and you wouldn't agree to be my girlfriend."

Laura wanted to be Kevin's girlfriend more than she'd wanted anything in a long time. "I think you should go ahead and ask me and find out."

"Laura, will you be my girlfriend?"

She stood up just enough to where she could kiss him again, all at once fervently wishing they were away from the restaurant and at his apartment so she could kiss him like she really wanted to. And to tell him what she had wanted to tell him before she'd gotten interrupted. Or maybe Kevin would rather she show him. "I would love to be your girlfriend," she told him seriously. "And once we finish this lovely dinner and get back to your car, I'll kiss you again."

He held her gaze for a long, long time, his expressive eyes rich with something she couldn't determine. "Laura Spencer, I will most definitely hold you to that." He reluctantly stopped himself from looking at her and went back to his food before it got cold. "Please don't think I'm complaining because I'm not, you can kiss me like that anytime and anywhere you want to, but - what did you do that for?"

Laura watched him carefully with gentle concern and hesitated only slightly before deciding to get it over with. They were already there. "I'm sorry, I couldn't think of anything else. Not that I haven't wanted to kiss you like that for three weeks, but - I know how hard this place is to get reservations to and how much you wanted to take me, and I didn't want you to think you had to change our plans. That was the only way I could think of to distract you so you wouldn't turn around and see that table over there and and be blindsided when you saw Lucy and Scotty just got seated over there."

Kevin was silent for a few uncomfortable seconds, before he finally looked up at Laura and forced a smile. Because she had only been trying to help and none of this was her fault. It was just a stupid coincidence. He appreciated her for looking out for him. "Do you know that in the three years since our divorce plus the six months she was cheating on me I somehow managed to live my life perfectly happily without seeing them on a date together?" He managed a laugh - heavy with long-standing and repressed bitterness, Laura thought - and shot her a rueful smile. "Oh, yes, I had a lot of time to think after I moved out and very quickly I figured it out just how long Lucy had been sleeping with Scotty behind my back." Kevin sighed. "So doesn't it just figure that once I find a woman to be happy with after so long, Lucy and I end up at the same restaurant. On the same night at the same time. And one that's completely on the outskirts of Port Charles, naturally."

"Naturally," Laura murmured in agreement. "I'm sure there's some sort of clinical theory about that. Maybe if you looked in your psychiatry textbooks you could find one."

Kevin finally laughed, a real laugh. "I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find a clinical description of any theory you could think of." He immediately and smoothly changed the subject away from Lucy and to Christina and what all they had done together for the two weeks he was there to care for her, how all the time spent watching movies and playing games and even just talking made him even more unbelievably difficult for him to come back to New York without his daughter. He told Laura that he'd asked Christina to figure out a time that worked for her to come visit him and to let him know and he'd pay for the tickets. (He laughed when he told Laura that he'd had to specify to Christina that he'd pay for business class but not first class.)

But when Christina did come to visit, he told her quietly, somewhat cautiously, he'd like to invite Christina to come to one of his and Laura's lunch dates so he could introduce her to Laura. In person. If that was okay with both of them.

Kevin had formally met Nikolas and Spencer, for obvious reasons; Laura had on purpose limited his chances of him running into Lulu, for equally obvious reasons, but being introduced officially to Kevin's daughter was something different. She knew simply by the way Kevin talked about her how deeply he adored his daughter and how much he valued her opinions.

It meant a lot to Laura that he thought enough time had passed from their first date and their relationship was in a good enough place for him to introduce her to his daughter, and it also showed her how deeply she and Kevin were becoming involved in each other's lives. That didn't even come close to scaring her like it used to. "I'd like that," she told him softly. "I'd like that a lot. I've been texting her every so often since you gave me her number and she knows who I am. Sometimes she texts me to ask me questions about you, I can't imagine why." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Did you talk about me to her, when you were in Paris?"

Kevin again stroked her palm with his thumb, because he understood what she was really asking. "I told her you were my girlfriend and that I cared about you very much. Does that work for you?"

Laura's smile was all the answer he needed and he smiled back, squeezing her hand. The next twenty minutes of their meal were remarkably uneventful and she used that time to in the back of her mind plan out how she was going to tell him what she'd been interrupted in trying to say earlier. She considered just letting the evening take them where it may and trusting him to figure it out but after what had happened the last night they were alone together she thought that highly unlikely. Laura was thinking that her best course of action would just be to say it out loud and let the chips fall where they may when something across the room caught her attention and she set her fork down in disgust. "Oh, you have **got** to be kidding me."

"Hm? What is it, Laura?" He watched his girlfriend's face as her eyes darted nervously from the opposite side of the restaurant to him, and then back to the table where his ex-wife and her boyfriend sat. "Honey, you don't have to spy on Lucy and Scotty for me. I don't care if they are here or not, I'm much more interested in you and what you were saying earlier before we got interrupted. You had decided something while I was away, about us?"

She kept talking. "As sweet as that is, Kevin, and honestly you have no idea what it means to me to hear you say that, I'm pretty sure judging by the commotion over there that Scotty and your - Lucy just got engaged."

Kevin shook his head. Lucy hadn't been his for a very long time, even for some of the time he was still her husband. "Lucy's not _my_ anything anymore except for my child's mother and so if she wants to marry Scott Baldwin that's her business." He shrugged. "I hope he makes her happy because obviously Christina and I couldn't."

"You don't mean that," she murmured. "You can't seriously believe your wife cheating on you with Scott Baldwin was your fault, babe."

He stared at her, not unkindly, but with eyes blazing with emotion and three years worth of deep personal hurt. "What do you want me to say, Laura? When you hear it enough times that your wife wouldn't have cheated if only you were home more or paid attention to her more or made her feel wanted, then yes, it starts to sink in that maybe it was my fault. And I'm not ashamed to admit that seeing her here with him hurts, that it stings how she can be so casual flaunting around her dating the man that she broke up our marriage for without a thought to how confusing it would be for Christina, but at the same time Lucy and Scotty getting engaged is **not** what I want to be focused on when I'm on a date with you. Especially not when you agreed to be my girlfriend and meet my daughter and promised me a really good kiss when we get out of here, ideally when we're alone." His expression turned tender and he kissed her hand. "I do appreciate you looking out for me, though, Laura, thank you. That means a lot."

He wished it wasn't so automatic of Laura to blush and avert her eyes from his penetrating gaze when he complimented her. One of his first duties as her boyfriend was to work on her self-esteem. "I just know if it was me I'd much rather be told what the situation was and not be blindsided later."

Kevin suspected there was a backstory to her comment and she wasn't only referring to Lucy and Scotty being here tonight but he let it go. "Stop it, Laura," he murmured, following her gaze to the table Lucy and Scotty were at, and sure enough Scotty was still on one knee in front of Lucy. "Give it up, man, the show's over," he muttered. Laura's sudden cough was the only evidence that she had heard him say that. He sighed. "It's okay, hon. I'm okay, really. You don't have to worry about me."

"Lucy's coming over here to talk to you," she whispered in a hurried breath when she saw Lucy stride quickly to their booth. "If you want me to keep quiet I will but I should warn you I don't suffer fools gladly and if she starts in on me I will talk back to her. Quietly. With enough decorum for a public place."

"Noted," he said, the corners of his mouth tugging into a smile. He scooted a few inches to the left and farther away from the edge of the booth only seconds before Lucy appeared but he wasn't happy with what happened next. Lucy materialized next to him and sat down beside him on the booth seat and called him Doc, running her fingers through his hair in a way that was entirely too intimate for their current strained relationship. Kevin glanced at Laura apologetically and saw her looking, to put it mildly, less than thrilled. Her grip on his hand got tighter and she looked down at the table.

Laura looked up, her eyes narrowed at what she immediately noticed as a marking-her-territory and possessive action in a long list of possessive actions, and for the briefest of moments she fantasized about how good it would feel to take one for the team and punch Lucy Coe right in the face. For Kevin's sake mostly but also for Christina's. And hers. But she snuck one look at Kevin, who looked as apologetic and also as embarrassed as she'd ever seen him, and decided against it. She was determined to show Lucy who was the better person here. Her mouth, however, showed no such promise to be restrained despite what she had promised Kevin. "Kevin and I are on our first date in weeks, actually, and we're headed home soon so if you could keep your hands off of him both of us would appreciate that very much. Can we help you with something?"

"Yes. You can stay out of my business when I need to talk to my husband about our daughter. I am perfectly capable of answering Kevin's phone calls and don't need you seeking me out in the hospital to tell me to call Kevin about Christina. If Kevin needs me to know something, he's a big boy. He can get in touch with me himself."

"Ex-husband," Kevin corrected quickly. "I'm your ex-husband and you don't get to talk to Laura that way in my presence or in anyone's presence. I called you about Christina for two days and you didn't answer my calls. She needed you. She needed her mom."

"I came, didn't I?"

"When it was convenient for you and you only stayed two days after she got released from the hospital and then you ran back home. That hardly counts as being there for our daughter by my definition," he said quietly but firmly. He snuck a second glance at his girlfriend. "And I don't think it's appropriate to have this conversation here or in front of Laura. We do need to talk about Christina and I think it's best that I call you so we can pick a time and place to meet and -"

"And what, Kevin Collins?" Lucy hissed. She wasn't even looking at Laura anymore. "You have turned Christina against me ever since we divorced so guess what? When I got to Paris she always turned to you for comfort and wanted nothing to do with me." Her eyes filled with tears. "Being there in the hospital with her was _hard_ for me, Kevin, you know why!"

"You weren't the only one that had those memories, Lucy," he forced himself to say. Laura held his hand and nudged his foot under the table so he would look up and see that she was still there with him and supporting him. She had a sinking feeling there was something in Kevin and Lucy's past she wasn't privy to, something else bad besides the divorce, and whatever it was Lucy seemed to be bringing it up on purpose for the sole reason of upsetting him. "Don't you dare think you're the only one that remembers. I do, too, I remember it every day, but Christina needed both of us to be there for her."

"You had no right, Kevin! You had no right to appoint yourself -"

"I am her **father** , Lucy, she has my name! I have every right!" Lucy looked triumphant and Laura gazed at him with gentle concern, so Kevin consciously lowered his voice. "I am her father, Lucy, she has my name, I have every right to do what's best for her." He scooted further away from her. "We will discuss Christina at another time. Why are you here talking to me and do you think you can tell me the truth as to why my girlfriend jumped up and kissed me the moment you and Scotty walked in the door and her reasoning was that she didn't want me to be blindsided?"

Laura smirked and found her voice. "Elizabeth Webber, the nurse you talked to to find out about Kevin's plans tonight and where he was taking me? Elizabeth Webber happens to be my former daughter-in-law and mother to three of my grandchildren. She warned me that you and Scotty would show up here tonight but Kevin worked hard to find reservations at a restaurant outside of Port Charles that he thought I would like and reservations here are hard to come by. I didn't want him to have to cancel when he'd already cancelled once." She leveled her gaze at Lucy Coe. "Don't you dare lie to him and tell him you didn't do that because I know you did. The only thing I can't figure out is if you knew Scotty was going to propose and decided you might as well throw that in Kevin's face too."

Lucy smirked and Laura concentrated very hard on her glass of wine so she wouldn't have to watch up-close how Lucy got even closer to Kevin and practically shoved her left hand into his face. "He did and I thought it was only right and proper that Kevin be the first to know that Scott Baldwin and I are getting married."

"So I heard," Kevin muttered noncommittally.

"The whole restaurant heard," Laura replied when it was obvious that Kevin was done talking to his ex-wife. She felt Kevin nudge her foot under the table and she couldn't help but grin. She couldn't wait to get out of here away from Lucy and be alone with him. Providing the run-in with Lucy hadn't dampened his mood too much. "You didn't have to tell Kevin about this now, did you? I'm sure a phone call would have been more appropriate."

"I don't think you need to be telling me what is or isn't appropriate when it comes to Kevin and I and our daughter."

Kevin drummed his free hand on the table. Not only was Lucy ruining his perfectly fine date with Laura, but their food was getting cold. "You're getting married. To Scott. Good for you, I hope he makes you happy."

Laura lifted her head quickly when the other woman didn't take the hint that the conversation was over and walk away. "I happen to think Kevin is being unreasonably generous towards you given the circumstances. The circumstances where you had an affair behind his back for months with your daughter's legal father, somehow convinced his best friend to lie to him for you and keep your secret, and then both of you proceeded to use the hospital's charity event to humiliate him in front of all of Port Charles?" She gave Lucy an insincere smile. "I bet those circumstances are hard to forget."

"Laura," Kevin warned under his breath, a touch of disapproval in his voice. A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth.

"I - wasn't aware you knew the whole story. Kevin doesn't talk about it."

Laura couldn't stop herself from smirking. The three of them - four, if they decided to include Scott - really were too old to play this jealousy and one-upmanship game but she wouldn't deny the satisfaction it gave her to get one over on Lucy Coe after everything the woman had done to hurt Kevin. And apparently that wasn't the only big thing she had done to hurt him. "He told **me.** Your betrayal and your blatant disregard for the vows you took and the promises you made each other hurt him extremely badly, but he told me. One night in his apartment." She took special satisfaction at how Lucy's eyes narrowed at the thought of Laura in Kevin's apartment at night. Laura waited patiently for when Lucy looked up again and she looked straight back at the other woman, unflinching. "When you said earlier that it wasn't my business? I'm his girlfriend, Lucy. We've been together for almost three months and I care about him very much. Kevin's happiness **is** my business. So when you organize an ambush on our date and come to our booth to make him atone for whatever sins you think he's caused, when your presence here is making him **unhappy**? That's when I make it my business to tell you to leave our table." Laura held up her hand slightly and made sure Lucy watched her slip her hand into Kevin's protectively. "If Kevin has business he needs to discuss with you regarding your daughter he will call you at his convenience and set a place to meet. I'm not going to stand in your way about that. But otherwise, I highly suggest you leave Kevin alone. I happen to know Scott pretty well myself and he's not going to like it that on your engagement night you've spent all this time talking to Kevin."

Lucy opened her mouth to say something else and Kevin beat her to it. "Forgive me, sweetheart," he whispered, squeezing Laura's hand. Laura's eyes sparkled with laughter when she saw the look on Lucy's face and knew exactly why Kevin had chosen to use that term of endearment right in front of his ex-wife, one he hadn't used before outside the four walls of his apartment.

Kevin turned slightly away from Laura and angled his body towards Lucy and for the next minute and a half the only thing Laura heard was hushed, extremely angry French. Lucy soon left the table and made a noise that was halfway between an indignant huff and an embarrassed choking sound, glaring at Laura all the while. But not before leaning in close to Kevin once more and murmuring loud enough for Laura to hear that she'd call him soon.

Laura's eyes narrowed at Lucy's retreating form. "Does she have to get so close to you like that?"

Kevin looked embarrassed. Subtle wasn't a word that was in his ex-wife's vocabulary and now that he thought about it that more than likely explained her Nurse's Ball spectacle with Scotty. "She likes to get attention," he sighed. "I don't know that I can apologize enough that it came at your expense. She clearly was looking to get a reaction out of you and though you were very well-intentioned you gave her one. So did I. I am fairly sure I know her motivation in coming here tonight and saying all the things she said to you and I don't want you to think for one minute that you're not important to me or anything you have to say about my daughter or anything at all isn't valid and important. Do you understand?" He stroked her wrist with his fingers. "Laura?" he asked, his voice soft. "You understand me?"

Tears pooled in her eyes and he quickly released her hand and reached up to cup her cheek and wipe them away with his thumb. "I get you," she murmured. "I'm - I'm sorry if I talked when I shouldn't have, you're right, I shouldn't have given her the reaction she wanted, but she was here and she was purposefully antagonizing you and I couldn't just let her do that to you. When she put her hands in your hair and called you Doc I swear to God I wanted to punch her in the throat. But I don't want to talk about her anymore. I told her she wasn't going to ruin our date and I'd really like that to be true."

He nodded almost immediately and she suspected he was grateful for her no-more-talk-about-Lucy ground rules. They could talk about it another day if she wanted to. "That sounds like a fantastic idea. I'd rather not waste any more time thinking about her when I could be thinking about my future with you. Immediate-speaking, as in, where would you like to go on our next date?"

It was now or never. He had given her the perfect opening. "If it's alright with you we can plan our next date later. What I want right now is for me to finish telling you what I was telling you earlier, about how I hoped that offer you made me the last night we were at your apartment is still good. Because I want to stay the night with you."

Kevin had to pull his hand back at the last minute so the inside of his shirt cuff didn't fall in the cocktail sauce. He **really** hoped he was understanding her correctly. He wasn't about to assume anything, look where that had gotten him last time. Her nodding or even her soft little smile wouldn't work, he needed verbal confirmation and consent. "At my apartment."

She gave his foot a little nudge under the table and resisted the urge to laugh. She certainly hoped he was more perceptive once they got to his apartment. "At your apartment. I don't want to go back to Wyndemere tonight, Kevin. I want to go to your home, to your apartment, with you."

Kevin reached across the table and took her hand in between both of his because he knew now what she was really saying. He was so grateful he hadn't messed things up between them three weeks ago. "Will you stay through the weekend?"

Laura murmured a coy we'll see and reached for the end of his tie to absently move the fabric through her fingers. "Take me home and make love to me."

Kevin didn't care anymore that their food was cold. He flagged down their waiter and asked for the check.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: In this world Laura never reconciled or remarried Scotty after the first marriage when she was a teenager and she didn't have a relationship with Stefan Cassadine outside of Cassadine Island. Those two things may have colored Lulu's picture of her parent's relationship and marriage and is part of why she is having trouble with Laura's new relationship.**

* * *

Lesley Lu Spencer-Falconeri liked to think she was a lot of things. Strong and determined and loyal like her mother, but sometimes she could be impulsive and reckless and sometimes even selfish like her father. Or so Dante liked to say. Maybe both of them passed down the stubborn gene because even though it had been three months and she heard from Nikolas and Dante both how happy her mother and Kevin were, she still couldn't bring herself to call her mom. She was still so angry about Maxie's video and having to see with her own eyes how happy and... _content_ her mom looked kissing Dr. Kevin Collins. It wasn't fair, Lulu thought, the voice in her head helpfully providing the anger she felt as she buttered the skillet so the pancakes wouldn't stick. It wasn't fair that her mom could be that happy with someone that wasn't her dad and not even think to share that she was starting a new relationship. Her mom hadn't dated anyone in years, this was - earth-shattering news, and she had to learn about it from a video? She told her mom most everything, dammit, wasn't that what mothers and daughters were supposed to do? Lulu had always worked so hard to create a close relationship with her mom that she hadn't had when she was a teenager, and she wanted that back. It did break her heart a little bit, in the deepest, deepest part of her heart, that this might be the end of the tell-each-other-everything part of the relationship her and her mama had, but the telephone worked both ways. Her mama hadn't called her, either.

Her eyes and mind drifted from the skillet and the pancakes she was trying to make for her son to the calendar they had on the wall next to their refrigerator, and there it was amidst Dante's shift schedule for the PCPD and various playdates for Rocco. Big block letters for a week from this Saturday: _APPOINTMENT WITH DR. LEE._ Lulu had already scheduled it with Elizabeth for Rocco to have a day-long playdate with his cousins that day so Lulu and Dante wouldn't be distracted. That was going to be the day that, if everything went according to the plan and Dr. Lee had given them no reason to worry that it wouldn't go to plan, that would be the day that she would be started on hormones to prepare her uterus and the rest of her body for the embryo transfer. This was the last embryo they had left so it had to work. It just had to. If everything went according to the plan after a week from Saturday and if everything worked the way it was supposed to she would be pregnant with Dante's baby at long last. Lulu stared at the calendar until her eyes blurred with tears. She wanted the pregnancy experience for herself - not just for herself, for her and Dante together - and more than anything she wanted her mother to be a part of it. She couldn't imagine getting pregnant and her mom **not** being the first person she told, after Dante of course. If she was a stronger woman she'd be able to realize this rift between them was mostly her own fault.

But no one would claim Lulu Spencer to have introspection and self-realization as two of her key personality traits.

So lost in thought she was that she didn't notice Dante come all the way from their bedroom upstairs into the kitchen until he hopped onto the counter beside her and dipped his finger into the uncooked pancake batter. She playfully swatted his hand away and he retaliated by tapping his pancake-batter-dipped finger to her nose. Lulu lifted her face to his for their customary good-morning kiss and went back to concentrating on her skillet. Man, she lived with one of the PCPD's finest detectives, so much for her powers of observation. She'd have to get better at that for Rocco's sake. "Hey, thanks for letting me sleep in, babe," Dante said. "But I missed you."

Lulu laughed. "Tell me one time since Rocco became our son that I've slept past eight." He was silent and she laughed again. "My point exactly. Besides I was up with him half the night before you got home that once I got him into his room I just conked out down here. I thought my two favorite guys could sleep in and we could have a family day." Lulu looked at her husband and did some calculations in her head and furrowed her brow. "Dante, this makes three weekends this last month Jordan asked you at the last-minute to stay overnight and work on cases. They are at least giving you overtime pay for all the extra hours you've put in, aren't they?" She went back to the skillet and decided to make a little bunny pancake for Rocco. "Because let's face it, babe, you and Nathan are the ones solving all these cases, not her. I much preferred it when Anna was your commissioner, I don't have high hopes for Jordan."

"Just what the commissioner wants to hear from a detective's wife, I'm sure," he grinned, leaning in for a quick kiss as he slid off the counter to go get some juice from the fridge. From personal experience they knew it was easier and less of a mess to have Rocco's juice out and already poured into his little plastic cup, lest the little guy try to pour it himself. That didn't end well, for the most part. Lulu wanted Rocco to be independent to an extent, but Dante didn't see the point in paying for the big carton of juice when at least a fourth of it inevitably ended up on the floor. "Nathan and I convinced Jordan to have us only be on-call this weekend as opposed to having to come in."

Lulu looked at her husband in confusion. "So as a reward for working overtime you made your schedule worse?" She quickly went back to eagle-eye watching that one circle pancake in the back corner of the skillet that looked like it wanted to burn on her. "Dante, you had this Sunday off already. You were just going in on Saturday. You and Rocco and I are going to breakfast at Kelly's on Sunday morning. It's on the calendar, see?"

Dante poured Rocco's juice and pressed the plastic lid secure onto the cup. "Oh, I, uh, I thought we weren't observing the family breakfast tradition lately," he finally said. "So I had said I'd work this Sunday. I thought I wrote it down, sorry, babe. But I'm not now. We can go to Kelly's if you want."

"Why would you think we weren't doing that anymore? We do family breakfast at Kelly's once or twice a month. Rocco loves it."

Dante sighed. "It's not the three of us as a family that makes it family breakfast, Lulu," he said carefully. Family breakfasts were a tradition started when Laura had come back to Port Charles for good last year: she would rotate one weekend every month to have breakfast at Kelly's with Nikolas and Spencer, with Lulu and Rocco and Dante, and with Elizabeth and Lucky's three sons, and once every few months all ten of them had breakfast together. But any mentions of her mother were made with extreme caution for the past couple of weeks. "Rocco eats breakfast with us all the time, he loves family breakfast and he loves going to Kelly's because that's when he gets to see Grandma." He took the spatula out of his wife's hand and quickly flipped the offending corner pancake and all the others before they burned; a few of them were already looking a little brown on the sides. "This makes it the third weekend this month we've tried to plan family breakfast and for the last two months you've on purpose come up with excuses to not invite Laura or we've gone to breakfast at Kelly's on a day you knew she had plans and couldn't make it." He stayed quiet long enough to let Lulu stew in her own thoughts. "I don't think it's just Rocco that misses her, babe," he murmured. "You should call her, Lulu. Don't let this thing between you get worse. You're going to get pregnant soon and you don't want to be fighting with her when that happens, do you?"

It was nigh impossible for Dante not to overlook the telltale signs that he was right - Lulu's shoulders stiffened, her eyes narrowed and she put her hand out for the spatula at the first mention in days of her mother. More than likely to whack him with it, and Lulu had a good arm. "Yes, Dante, of course I'd want my mother and I to be friends again if and when I tell her about her newest grandchild but let's not borrow trouble before it happens. That is still awhile from now. Why call her now? She more than likely has plans with Kevin that she doesn't want me to ruin. It's our long-standing tradition, besides; she knows she is perfectly welcome to come to family breakfast."

He wanted to laugh at his wife's thickheaded thinking and even though she glared at him he ended up doing just that. "No, Lulu, I don't think she does." Dante looked seriously at his wife. He loved her so much but sometimes she could drive him crazy and sometimes he thought she got the worst genetic traits of both of her parents. "Think about it, babe. It's been three months since you found out about her and Kevin and ever since that day you've treated her horribly. You turned this into her doing something to hurt you when in actuality all that's happened is that for the first time in a long time your mom has done something for herself without consulting you and your ego can't stand it. So, after all that, why would she want to come to breakfast with us?"

"To see her grandson that she hasn't seen in person in a week?" Lulu retorted. "And don't bring my ego into this and make me sound like an ungrateful daughter denying my mother a life of her own because that's not what this is." She brandished the spatula at him angrily. "Let's not forget I didn't 'find out' about her and Kevin, okay? Maxie recorded them and sent me a seven minute video of them making out in a back hallway of General Hospital. **His** place of work which shows a gross lack of professionalism on his part. And let's also not forget that it was seven minutes long. **Seven** minutes, Dante. Seven minutes where he was pressing my mother up against a wall and he had his knee spreading her legs apart and she was grabbing his shirt so tightly that I swear to God there wasn't an inch of space between them. My mom...she still looks nice for her age and she hasn't had sex for a very long time, I'm sure she still has needs. I'm also sure that he took her back to his apartment that night and made sure all of her needs were fulfilled. Everyone else who watched that video thought the same thing. And that is my _**mother**_ , Dante Falconeri. My MOTHER. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?"

"I wasn't thinking that," he muttered. "Don't be disrespectful to your mother and to Kevin, Lulu, it isn't right how you just talked about them. I'm sure thinking about how embarrassing that video was for YOU wasn't her highest priority at the time. Did you ever stop to think about how embarrassing it was for her? Or for him? Like you said, he does work there." He took the apple juice back to the fridge and reached for the bowl of blueberries and also the bowl of sliced strawberries, and handed them to his wife. "And that's another thing, Lu, your passive-aggressive move making my ma primary babysitter now. You're punishing Laura for something that isn't even her fault, it was Maxie that sent you the video. How do you think not being allowed to babysit her grandson makes Laura feel?"

"Hurt? Sad? Unworthy?" Lulu offered flippantly as she took the blueberries Dante offered her and started to press them into the pancakes that hadn't yet been flipped. "All of the above? Unworthy, ooh, that's a good one. Unworthy is how I felt when I saw that video. So - kind of like that, I guess."

"You're not being fair to your mom, Lesley Lu," Dante said firmly. Lulu narrowed her eyes at him when he used her full name. He sighed. "Look, Lu, you're hurt. I get it. I don't understand it, but I'll give it to you that you are hurt because she didn't tell you right away. But she didn't tell Nikolas either and he can put that aside and be happy for her because he can see that your mother has her own life separate from just being your mother. To be honest, Lu, it sounds to me like the part of you that's still angry at her for not being there for you when you were a teenager wants to get back at her by acting like teenager to her now. Honey, she found someone that makes her happy and that she likes spending her free time with, she hasn't done anything wrong."

Lulu only nodded and wiped her hands on a dishrag, handing him back the spatula. "You and I clearly differ on that opinion but you are my husband and we're about to have breakfast with our son. I don't want to argue with you about it. I won't change my mind. The first batch of pancakes should be done soon so I should go wake up Rocco." She headed for the stairs and made it halfway up one step before curiosity got the better of her and she had to stop, with one foot on the bottom step and one foot still on the linoleum tile. "Dante, since when did you get so buddy-buddy with my mother? Why are you on her side about this?"

His first response was confusion. "Why _aren't_ you on your mother's side?" She stared at him and he shrugged. "I've called her a few times to meet the little man and I at the park. Rocco plays and we talk. When Rocco isn't getting her to push him on the swing, that is. I don't know how but somehow she's better at that then I am. It's not fair to Rocco if he never gets to see his grandma just because you two are fighting, Lulu, it confuses him. He's already confused why my ma plays with him now when we go out and not grandma." Dante sighed. "Lulu, sweetheart, I love your mother, I do. She's a wonderful woman that's raised some pretty great kids, even you, and she's a wonderful grandmother to Rocco. Rocco _adores_ her, Lu, you know that."

Lulu grinned because even as angry as she was at her mother she had to agree that Rocco had a pretty fantastic grandma.

"She's _great_ with Rocco and she's saved our butts more times than we can count when we needed a sitter last-minute. It seems like every single time you or Nikolas need her to watch Spencer or Rocco she's willing to do it or it doesn't take much convincing from you two for her to change her plans for you. Hell, even Elizabeth Webber knows she has a built-in babysitter because all of those boys are Lucky's sons and do you know how many double shifts she gets asked to work at the last minute where she has to scramble to get someone to watch one or all three of them? Laura does it without question and I don't think any of you ever thank her for it. At least not as much as we should, and I'm guilty of it too. But, babe, don't you want your mom to have more than that? Don't you want her to find happiness?"

Lulu slowly turned around to face her husband and answered him slowly, in clipped, measured tones. "I always thank her for babysitting, Dante. I got her a gift-certificate to that spa for watching Rocco that four-day weekend while we went out of town, remember? It took five minutes for me to get her to accept it and that was only barely. She barely accepts money from you if you try to pay her. Her grandsons make her happy."

Dante resisted the urge to roll his eyes and flipped the pancakes, annoyed and frustrated that Lulu was missing his point.

"Yes, dear, her grandchildren make her happy, but even when the new one comes, knock on wood, the boys are all going to get older and won't need a sitter forever. I was thinking more along the lines of a man. Someone to be her friend, her companion. Someone that she can do things with. Maybe even someone to share this part of her life with, if she's that lucky. If it's at all possible for her to find that, especially in Port Charles, where, let's face it, the options are pretty grim if you want a quiet and safe little life, wouldn't you want that for her? Don't you want her to be happy with someone? Someone to look after her so you don't have to worry about her all the time?"

"You make it sound like my mom's not happy with her life the way it is and wants someone to take care of her," Lulu muttered, and it was only because of Dante's years of knowing and loving his wife and translating Lulu-speak that he was able to hear the quiet sadness in her voice. "She had that once, that happiness and someone to share her life with. With my dad. They were happy for a long time, Dante."

Dante abruptly turned the burner down low and went to sit down on the second-to-last step. Lulu immediately sat down beside him and laid her head on his shoulder, Dante pressing a long kiss to the top of her head and carefully running his fingers through her hair. "I know they were, honey," he whispered. "They were married for a long time and I'm not disrespecting that. Your mom choosing to date someone isn't disrespecting what she had with your dad. Your mom loved your dad so much because your dad gave her you and your brother. They had a good life together. But, over the course of that life your mother was in prison and institutionalized and she wasn't able to be there for you when you needed her the most, and all of that went back to decisions that she and Luke made. Living their lives on the run and trying to raise Lucky in that life, it made their lives together harder and more stressful than it ever needed to be. Your parents weren't perfect, Lu."

"I didn't say they were, Dante," she sighed. She didn't want to listen to Dante talking down to her about what he thought he knew about Luke and Laura Spencer. Lulu knew the story of her parents better than anyone and what she didn't Lucky had told her. But the bottom line was that Luke and Laura Spencer were _**it**_ for each other and that was that. Hell, her dad had conceived a child with another woman and had still tried to tell her mom that didn't mean he didn't love her any less. Lulu stood and went back to the kitchen island and aggressively started to take strawberries from the bowl, separating almost half the bowl into two adult-sized piles and one smaller one cut into smaller bites for Rocco. "I know they weren't, dammit, why do you think I have a half-brother named Ethan? I know dad wasn't always faithful to mom. I also know that when mom was - away that Dad didn't know what to do with me without mom there to help him, so I was mostly raised by Bobbie and my grandmother for a few years. Which wasn't fun, let me tell you. But, Dante, no matter what she was still my mom and he was still my dad. There wasn't ever a time in my life that I didn't believe that dad wouldn't do absolutely anything on this earth for my mom. They loved each other completely. Except for that one time, Dad didn't even look at any other woman but mom."

Dante silently took three plates from the shelves and watched as his wife scooped three pancakes onto their plates and a smaller circle next to the bunny pancake on Rocco's plate. She even took two of the tiny blueberries to use for little eyes for the bunny pancake. "Kevin's not your dad," he murmured hesitantly, and just like he thought she whipped around to face him, the last blueberry flying out of her hand and bouncing onto the floor where it eventually rolled to a stop just under the dishwasher. He quickly went to retrieve it before it got lost and forgotten and dropped it into the sink. "Is that the real problem you have with your mom dating him, Lulu?" he asked her. "The idea that she's choosing to date someone that isn't your father?"

Lulu took the bowl of fruit from him and put it back in the refrigerator. "Mom has made it clear to me that what she does in her personal life is her own business and not mine and apparently I'm not allowed an opinion in the matter if it's different than hers. I have no choice but to respect that. She has to respect that I'm not going to ever like her dating someone. I told you I didn't want to talk about this, Dante. It's upsetting."

She was all of a sudden saved from answering another set of questions from her well-intentioned but meddling husband who had apparently become her mother's biggest cheerleader all of a sudden, when their two-and-a-half year old son came down the stairs rubbing his eyes with one of his toy cars clutched firm in his little hand. Lulu immediately recognized it as his current favorite toy and one that her mom had given him months ago. She tried not to think about it. Rocco's brown hair was sticking up every which way, his adorable bedhead looking so much like a toddler-version of his daddy's that Lulu had to smile.

Grasped in his other hand was a crumpled piece of paper and as soon as his feet pajamas touched the floor Rocco went straight for his mother. "Mommy mommy!"

Lulu held out her arms for her son and swung him around as soon as he was in her arms, lifting his Power Rangers pajama top and raspberry-kissing his bare tummy. Rocco laughed hysterically and she did it again. Hearing her son laughing was her favorite sound in the world. Sometimes late at night when Dante was at work and she was alone she would just sit in Rocco's room and watch him sleep because her mind wouldn't stop telling her how close she and Dante had come to their son being lost to them forever, how Britt Westbourne would have kept the secret of Ben's true parentage to her dying breath if Elizabeth hadn't found her out and Lulu would have lived her entire life thinking that her true son was only her nephew by marriage. Britt had taken so much away from her with Rocco, that was why she so desperately wanted to get pregnant so badly. But if she couldn't she could and would throw all of her energy into their son. Their adorable, wonderful, precocious son. "What do you have there in your hand, little man?"

Hearing only the tail end of the question Dante did his best to carefully extract the paper from chubby toddler fingers and smooth it out. It wasn't a piece of paper but an envelope. An envelope with Lulu's full name on it it a handwriting he recognized and Dante handed it to his wife while taking their son from her. He kissed her quickly on the cheek and nodded to the envelope that was now in her hands. "I will take care of Rocco and get him started on breakfast. You need a few minutes to yourself for this, babe. Go to the living room and read that. It's from your mom."

Lulu opened her mouth to speak but Dante shook his head. "It's from your mom, Lulu, you need to read it," he repeated. "She's reaching out to you."

Lulu frowned and reluctantly looked at the envelope and there was her name in her mother's distinctive handwriting, just like Dante said. Her full name, Lesley Lu Spencer, and just like Dante her mom only used her legal name when she was mad or frustrated. Lulu sighed and opened the envelope and pulled out a folded letter. It was still slightly wrinkled still so she smoothed it out on her sweatpants and when she finally skimmed the letter she saw a little set of numbers in the upper right hand corner signifying the date. Her mother always dated her letters, Lulu could never understand why. She squinted to read the numbers and she looked across the room at the calendar, her heart doing an annoying little flip-flop when the date on the calendar stared back at her in confirmation, unforgiving. The date written on the letter was two and a half weeks ago.

"I'll supervise breakfast, Lulu." Dante's voice all of a sudden sounded like it was coming from far away and Lulu couldn't breathe. She didn't know what was in the letter but she could practically hear her mother's disapproval even through ink and the way she had written Lulu's whole name. "Your mother is meeting you halfway, Lulu. More than halfway considering you're the one that started this fight and won't let her be happy."

Lulu's eyes shot up to meet her husband's. "I can let her be happy."

"How is she supposed to be happy in her new relationship when she knows that her new relationship is making her only daughter so obviously _unhappy_ , huh?" He shook his head again and kissed her forehead. "She reached out to you, now it's your turn. She wrote you a letter because this is the only way she knows to communicate with you where you can't argue back. Now it's your turn to meet her halfway, and keep an open mind. She just might surprise you with what she says. But what do I know, I'm just your husband." He shifted Rocco's weight to one arm and used his free hand to give her shoulder a quick squeeze in support. "Kevin Collins isn't the enemy, Lu," he reminded her in a soft, easygoing murmur. "Your mother had to see something in him that she liked if she's dating him. You said she hasn't dated much since your dad." Lulu nodded. "Look, and I don't mean to be disrespectful to your mother, but there aren't that many men in her age range here that she can date, and Sonny Corinthos is my father so he's out. If you lined up all the age-appropriate men for your mother to date in this town I'd say Kevin Collins comes out of that lineup looking pretty good, don't you?"

 _That's not the point and no one seems to see it but me,_ Lulu thought sadly to herself as she went into the living room and sat down in her favorite chair, the one she always used for extra nighttime mommy cuddles with Rocco until they both fell asleep. _It doesn't matter that Kevin's better for her then Sonny or Julian or Ned or Paul Hornsby. Or even Robert Scorpio or Mac. Kevin Collins could be the nicest man in the world - and yes, he isn't a mobster or a serial killer so that's a plus in his favor - but he's still not my dad._

For her entire life Lulu had only seen her mother love and commit herself to one man and that man was Luke Spencer. Even when they separated and eventually divorced it hadn't taken long for them to reunite because they belonged together. (It had taken her so long to even get to a point where she even could _look at_ Tracy Quartermaine because liking Tracy meant she was being disloyal to her mother and after her mother had gone to bat for her so many times she couldn't do that).

It had turned her whole world completely on his axis and brought up a lot of unresolved feelings about her parent's relationship to see that video Maxie sent her and see her mom kissing another man so...wholeheartedly. And, okay, she had seen the two of them together in town a few times. Out to dinner at The Floating Rib and Elizabeth might have mentioned it to her that more than a few times she had seen Laura come to the hospital to visit Kevin on his breaks and to bring him coffee. Dante had even texted her yesterday and casually mentioned that he had seen Laura at the airport that day picking up Kevin from an international flight and that Kevin had obviously been happy to see her. Lulu hadn't wanted to think too much about what that meant, but she couldn't deny it to herself anymore that her mom was dating someone if people were seeing them around town and talking to her about it.

Lulu's stomach flip-flopped again. Was it possible that her stubbornness was going to cost her her relationship with her mother?

She gave herself the count of three to start to read the letter and instead went all the way to eight before she could force herself to read anything besides her name. Which, thank goodness, was Lulu and not Lesley Lu. Lulu couldn't explain it out loud how much it relieved her to read the usual name her mom called her and not her I'm-mad-at-you-and-I'm-calling-you-out name. She skimmed the letter more than once and on the third read-through Lulu's eyes brimmed with ashamed tears. She was starting to notice so many things she hadn't noticed before and it wasn't just in this letter. She was starting to notice that her mom and Kevin being seen together as a regular couple in Port Charles was a common enough occurrence that Elizabeth and Dante and Nikolas were talking to her about it. Dante had even told her that he had seen them kissing in public once. She noticed now that it had been three months since her mom and Kevin had started dating and her mom had gone happily about her business and hadn't introduced Lulu to Kevin, and for the first time in months Lulu understood why. This relationship had to be important to her mom if she was willing to protect Kevin that much.

She found herself holding the piece of paper a little tighter as she started to read it again from the beginning.

 _Lulu,_

 _Lulu, my sweet girl, I love you. I need to start with that, apparently, because ever since the news of my new romantic life made it all the way around Port Charles (and I don't know why it did or why it became that big of a deal, Kevin and I aren't that interesting) you seem to be uncertain as to your importance in my life and I'm not ashamed to say that it breaks my heart and that I'm disappointed. Not in you but in me because if I have ever, ever done anything that made it seem to you and your brothers that the three of you aren't the three most important people in my life - if that has happened I need you to tell me and we can talk about it. But just because I am choosing to date someone and prioritize that part of my life it doesn't ever take away from how very much I love you, Lucky, and Nikolas._

 _I want to say it to your face but since you aren't in a forgiving mood at the moment (something you get from your father and NOT from me, mind you) this letter will have to do for now. If you need me to say it outright so there won't be any confusion, I'll say it gladly. I love you, Lesley Lu Spencer. I have loved you since the moment I found out that I was pregnant with you and nothing has ever or will ever change that. The day you were born was one of the most terrifying days of my life - your dad was so worried he would lose us both - but the minute they put you in my arms nothing else mattered but you. You and your brothers will always be number one in my life no matter who else comes along. I promise._

 _Even after your behavior to me these last few months._

 _Because even though I meant every word when I told you how much I love you and how important you and your family are to my life, Lulu, I don't appreciate the way you've been treating me. I understand how much you love your father and I accept that you had a hard time accepting our divorce, but sweetheart, your dad and I kept a lot from you and Lucky on purpose. He and I have been over for quite some time and it's better for all of us that we are. I don't think divorcing your dad precludes me from having happiness ever again, do you? Lulu, Kevin makes me happy. I don't know how to explain it to you differently than that, but he makes me happy in a way I haven't felt in years._

 _I was going to tell you about our date. I honestly was, but is it such a bad thing for me to want Kevin and I the chance to get to know each other as romantic partners without getting everyone's input on the matter? I'm not the only one of us that's been divorced; he's been hurt before, too, and he has a child. I thought it was only right and fair to both of us that we got the opportunity to get used to dating slowly, on our own terms, and then we'd tell all the important people. You and your brothers and his daughter and his ex-wife. Kevin and I aren't dating just to date, Lulu, we think this could be a long-term relationship for us. But even so, having our first kiss be recorded and sent around Port Charles (Kevin had a chat with Mac about Maxie's behavior) certainly was not how we intended to make our relationship public and for you finding out that way I am deeply sorry. Kevin is, too. He'd like to apologize to you in person if you'd let him but I keep putting it off because he doesn't deserve your attitude, frankly. He didn't do anything wrong and neither did I._

 _Coming to conclusions about my relationship with Kevin based only on that video you saw - it isn't fair, Lulu, and I'll tell you why. Yes, that was our first kiss and it's possible we went overboard considering where we were, but we didn't think we were being watched. Honey, Kevin is so much more to me than just a man I kissed at the hospital. He cares about me. He's been the one to reassure me that you'll come around someday. Even before he came all the way out to Wyndemere to ask me out we had already spent six months spending time together because he was helping me unlock the mystery of Helena's clues. The most painful memories of my life are wrapped up in that woman and the Cassadines and every single time going down memory lane was too hard he was always there to help me, to encourage me and make me see that everything we had to talk about was for the greater good and he wasn't pushing me just to push me. Lulu, he...he makes me feel like I am so much more than the sum of all my bad experiences. He's not running away because of everything the Cassadines have done to me. I know that might not mean that much to you but it's the most important thing in the world to me right now._

 _He makes me smile, Lu. He makes me smile, he makes me laugh and he just brings joy to my life in a wonderful way that is completely separate from you and your brothers and all the grandkids. I care about him very much. Lulu, he texts me most every morning just to tell me good morning and that he's thinking about me. It's so sweet, I haven't felt like this in a long time._

Lulu barely was able to hide a smile because even through the letter she could practically see her mom blushing. Okay, this was cute, she had to admit. Maybe her mom dating wouldn't be the worst thing in the world after all, if Kevin made her that happy. She'd just have to teach her mom a few things.

She went back to the letter.

 _Kevin is in Paris now for I don't know how long tending to his sick daughter and he made me promise to get in touch with you when he was gone. That's why I'm writing you this letter instead of calling. You won't answer my calls and when Dante answers and gives you the phone you barely talk to me. That's not our relationship. That's not my Lulu. I want us to be close again and I want us both to try to make that happen. I've said it so many times but I'll say it again if you need to hear it: I promise you that I wasn't intentionally trying to keep something from you._

 _When you and Dante and Rocco decide to eat at Kelly's this month will you please call me? Kevin saw the three of you at Kelly's last month and it took a lot of convincing on my part for him to tell me. I miss you, Lulu. I miss you and I miss Rocco. We don't have to talk about Kevin if you don't want to, but please don't shut me out._

 _I'm sorry, Lulu. I'm so sorry you were hurt by the video but I'm not sorry that I'm with someone that makes me happy. Please call me when you read this, I'd love to hear from you._

 _I love you always._

 _Mom._

 _P.S - Dante showed me pictures of the house you put an offer on. It's perfect for you and Rocco._

It took Lulu a few minutes for it to register that Dante was calling her from the kitchen because Rocco was insisting that she come eat, but even then she didn't move. Her mom had clearly spent a lot of time and energy pouring her heart into that letter and had admitted a lot of things about how she felt about Kevin, but even more about how she felt about Lulu. Lulu wasn't ready yet to apologize to her mom for her feelings about her mom dating Kevin - no matter how good of a man he was she might always have a little bit of an issue with that no matter if her mom and Kevin ever got serious or not - but Dante was right and she needed to suck it up and meet her mom halfway. The letter sounded angry beneath all her proclamations of love and Lulu didn't want her mom to be angry at her anymore. She needed her mom and Rocco needed his grandma, so she'd take what little acting skills she learned from Maxie and pretend like she was okay with the idea of her mom and Kevin until she was okay with it for real. She didn't know how long that would take but she supposed she owed it to her mom to try. She supposed she owed a little bit of it to Kevin, too; her mom seemed intent on protecting him and defending him. _Protecting her new boyfriend from me_ , Lulu thought, and it made her unspeakably sad.

"MOMMY!" Rocco screamed from his booster seat at the table. "MOMMY EAT!"

Dante's hands were all of a sudden on her shoulders and she jumped, the letter fluttering to her lap. She hadn't heard him even leave the kitchen. Lulu's eyes immediately tracked towards the kitchen where their toddler had been left unsupervised with utensils and food - sticky food - but Dante was already ahead of her. "You know I can only leave him for three minutes max before he makes a mess. I just wanted to see if you were okay. You were, uh, you were looking at that letter pretty intently."

Lulu handed him the paper wordlessly and stayed quiet for a time, dropping her head back to rest on his shoulder. "My mother spent two pages of her impeccable handwriting to tell me in so many words that I'm a horrible daughter." She blinked back embarrassed tears. "She actually said that she's been holding Kevin back from trying to talk to me because he doesn't deserve my attitude." A few tears escaped and trickled down her cheeks. "She's happy and by the little things she says it sounds like they might be getting serious and they might try to make a life together, but Dante, she didn't even tell me she was dating him, she let me find out from that video Maxie sent."

Dante crossed in front of the chair and squatted in front of her. "Did she tell you that she planned on telling you about her and Kevin the correct way, without the visual aid?"

Lulu hesitated but ultimately nodded. "Yes, but - "

"But nothing. She did nothing wrong doing what was best for her and for Kevin and not considering you," Dante said softly, wiping her tears with his thumb. "You can be mad at Maxie for taking the video and you can even be mad at yourself for not being the good daughter Laura needed you to be, but don't blame your mom for not telling you when you wanted her to tell you especially when she knew you'd react badly." He scanned the letter and handed her the cordless phone. "She's angry, Lulu. She's angry and she's hurt and her instinct is to want to protect her relationship and I don't blame her. But she doesn't hate you. You and her are just too much alike the way you react to being hurt." He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. "Call her, Lu. Call her right now because it's already been two weeks since she sent that letter and every day you don't call her it gets easier to make excuses why you shouldn't. I think you know that." He stood up and shot an affectionate glance toward their boy still in his booster chair at the kitchen table. "I need to get back to the kitchen and make sure all the food survived my absence. Come eat with us when you're ready."

Lulu stared silently at the phone for a long time after Dante went back to the kitchen and barely smiled at his announcement that Rocco had stolen one of her pancakes, taken a big bite of it, and put it back on her plate. She counted to three one more time and this time she had to count all the way to nine until she started to dial her mom's cell phone number. She heard the phone ringing and waited patiently.

And then waited some more.

 _I get it, mom,_ Lulu thought, biting back a harsher retort, even if it was only in her head. _I get it. You're getting back at me for me not calling you by not answering right away._ Her mom **always** answered on the first or second ring if it was Lulu or Nikolas or Lucky calling her.

The line finally connected after the sixth ring and Lulu heard the rough, harried voice of someone that was highly annoyed at being interrupted, and it definitely **was not** her mother. It was masculine. "Sofia, I will be there for the meeting. You will get your raise, I promise. But I am in the middle of something very important right now so unless there is something that absolutely can not wait I suggest you call me back." Lulu heard hushed whispering in the background and could even hear her mom telling Kevin to hang up right now and come back to bed, she promised him she could entertain him more than that phone could. Lulu was horrified.

She was stunned into silence and for a good while she was caught so off-guard she didn't know how to respond. She knew it was Kevin that had answered her mom's phone but at the same time she was a hundred percent sure she had dialed her mom's cell phone and she did **not** want to know what it meant now that Kevin Collins was answering her mother's phone at 10:00 in the morning. Not to mention that she had obviously interrupted them from - activities that required the use of a bed that apparently they were in the middle of. Or that her mom wanted them to be in the middle of, before her phone rang and Kevin had answered it. Oh, this was bad, this was bad, this was so, so very bad. More than anything else in the world she did not want it confirmed that her mother had spent the night with Kevin.

But she heard crinkling bedsheets and her mother's soft voice telling Kevin again to come back to bed and Lulu had her answer. And now Lulu had another question: if Kevin was spending the night with her mother, who the heck was Sofia?

Lulu clamped her mouth shut in wordless shock when she heard Kevin murmuring something soft to her mother to make her laugh and say his name in shock, and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling and prayed to everything she believed in that he didn't finish that sentence and her mom didn't ask him what he had in mind. For the love of everything holy, she didn't want that sentence finished. "Kevin," she snapped. "Why are you answering my mother's phone, Kevin?"

There was complete and utter silence and after an uncomfortably long amount of time Kevin sounded very confused when he answered her. "Lulu? Is there something wrong that you're calling my phone and not your mother's?"

"I am calling my mom's number. I've called it for years; I know what her number is. You answer my question first. Why are you answering my mother's phone and who is Sofia?"

"I'm...I'm sorry, I thought this was my phone. Um, I think it might be best if I pass along a message instead of having you talk to her. Did - did you need something urgently? Is something wrong with Dante or Rocco?"

She exhaled in frustration. "Dante and Rocco and I are perfectly fine. I'd like to speak to my mother."

More silence except for quiet talking in the background. Lulu couldn't make out - bad choice of words, Lulu, she thought to herself - what her mom was saying and judging by what she could hear of Kevin's reaction she wasn't sure that she wanted to know. "In a minute, Lulu. I'd like to say something to you, if I have your permission to speak freely." He didn't wait for an answer before he started talking, something Lulu found rude and highly aggravating. "Lulu, I - I understand that you have a problem with the idea of your mother dating me, but I promise you I'm not a bad guy. I have references, you can talk to my daughter if you don't believe me. If you're willing I would be more than happy to take you to lunch one day and you can ask me anything you need to ask me. If you're not willing, and it's okay if you don't want to get to know me, but keep that between you and me. Don't continue to treat Laura like you have been. Please."

 _Don't you dare presume you have the right to tell me how to treat my mother._ Lulu was so glad Dante wasn't in the room to see her eyes filling with tears and her lips quivered in the way that told her she was going to cry soon. _You'll never have the right to tell me how to behave._ Her hand clenched tighter around the phone to regain control of her emotions. She knew Kevin was right, that he wasn't a bad man and it wasn't fair how she was treating him, and that if her mom could hear her she'd be so disappointed in her, but she couldn't help it. She had never been faced with this situation before and she didn't know how to handle it. The iciness in her tone didn't even surprise her. "Put my mother on the phone, Kevin. _Please."_

Kevin was silent for a long time. "One moment, please," he finally said. Lulu heard snippets of hushed conversation until there was all of a sudden silence that Lulu feverently hoped they weren't using to kiss. She heard her mom quietly murmur something to him, something that sounded suspiciously like an 'I love you, see you later," and soon enough her mom picked up the phone.

Her mom's voice wasn't as outwardly icy as hers had been when speaking to Kevin but Lulu could tell she wasn't happy. "Mom, hi, it's...it's me, Lulu." She was quiet and respectfully waited for her mother to speak. "Mom, please, wait. I wanted to -"

"I did," came her mom's weary reply. "I did wait. For three months I've waited for you to change your mind about Kevin and it's been two weeks since I sent you that letter and I asked you to call me. I suppose your lack of response until now should have given me a clue as to what your answer would be."

"Is Kevin there?" she blurted out.

"No, he - he went out to get us breakfast. I, um, let's just say I ruined the first breakfast. We're going to spend the rest of the day together until he has to go to his meeting," she heard her mom say. "Why? Now that he's not here you can talk to me?"

"No, no, of course that's not what I meant," Lulu hastened to assure her. "And I'm sorry it took so long to call you, mama, Rocco must have hidden the letter in his toybox or something because I just saw it this morning and I - I wanted to talk to you about it," she said honestly. "I - I know that you love me, mom, you didn't have to say it."

Lulu heard footsteps walking back and forth and imagined her mom pacing the floor before she finally answered, her voice laced with hurt and pain. "You haven't acted like you knew that I loved you, Lesley Lu," her mom said. "You've been acting like I did something purposeful to hurt you when I haven't. I'd...I'd like your blessing but I don't need your permission to find someone to date, Lulu."

"He makes you happy, doesn't he, mom?" Lulu asked, blinking back even more tears. It was more of a statement than a question and it seemed like the safest route to take the conversation at the moment. She didn't know why she even thought to phrase it as a question, it was obvious even in this phone conversation so far that her mom cared about Kevin so much more than any three-month relationship than Lulu had ever had. "You like him a lot. You meant what you said in that letter, he's not just someone you made out with in the hall. You care about him."

"I love him." Lulu's brain stalled out completely when she heard that but it didn't take much to realize that her mom hadn't meant to say that out loud. The phone line got quiet and Lulu realized that this could be the first point of concession she could give her mom: pretending she hadn't heard anything. At least for the next few days. "Yes, Lulu, yes, Kevin makes me happy. I know that might not mean much to you because he isn't Luke, but he's so good for me and -"

"Of course it means something to me that you're happy, mama," Lulu interrupted, all at once horrified she had treated her mother so badly that she would think her daughter didn't care about her happiness. "I can try to deal with the fact that he isn't dad for your sake. I - I want you to be happy, mom, and if Kevin makes you happy, I can want that for you. I **will** want that for you."

"If you have to force yourself to want me to be happy and it's going to be that much of a hardship for you to 'deal with' Kevin then I was right to limit your interactions with him," came her mom's sharp reply. "I'm not going to put him through having to put up with your attitude and to be honest I don't quite like the idea of being put through it myself. He's an intelligent man, Lulu, he'd be able to tell what you were doing if you were fake with him all of a sudden."

Lulu swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped clumsily at her eyes with the back of her hand. Not because she didn't deserve the tongue-lashing because she did, but, holy geez, her mom was making it hard for her to say she was sorry. "No, please, mom, I….oh, I know this is coming out all wrong, but I'm trying. Really, I am. I want to accept the fact that you're dating and...there's this whole other part of your life that I'm not involved in and I'd like to be a part of it. I do want to get to know Kevin if he's so important to you and I want to be a part of this if - if you'll still have me. Mama, _please._ "

"You haven't apologized, Lulu, have you noticed that? Not once."

"I'm sorry, mama," Lulu murmured, the tears falling freely now down her cheeks. "I'm sorry for how my reaction hurt you. I know the video wasn't your fault but it just surprised me. I didn't expect you to -"

Her mother's voice was as soft and as gentle as she had ever heard it as an adult. "I didn't expect to either. I didn't go out looking for this but Kevin found me anyway. I never expected him and I to be anything more than friends but we've been together for three months and - it's good, Lulu, it's really good. I can't imagine my life without him in it like this," she told her daughter quietly. "And it doesn't scare me to say that out loud. You don't have to like him, Lulu, not yet. You've always been my rebellious girl and I know it will take some time. But in that time you do have to make a good faith effort to get to know him because when you do I just know you'll like him. But until you do, Lesley Lu, you have to respect him. Is that clear?"

"Yes ma'am," Lulu whispered. She turned to glance into the kitchen, to Dante and to Rocco, and got an idea. "Would you -" She again swallowed the lump in her throat and tried again. "Dante, Rocco and I plan to go to Kelly's to breakfast on Sunday. We can pick you up at the docks or you can meet us there." She took another breath. "Kevin - you are welcome to extend that invitation to Kevin if you want to. I'm sure Rocco would welcome the undivided attention of another person. You, uh, you might want to warn him that Rocco isn't completely out of his terrible twos phase and it tends to flare up more around strangers. Is Kevin good with kids? He works with adults mainly, doesn't he?" Lulu couldn't help it but give an amused chuckle when she heard her mom laugh out loud. "Why is that funny?"

"Rocco loves Kevin," she said simply. "Rocco did his sad puppy dog face and got Kevin to give up half of his granola bar and that was that. Now they're best friends. It's adorable." Laura got serious when Lulu wasn't laughing. "Yes, Lulu, Kevin is good with kids. He has an adult daughter, I'm sure I mentioned that. Even Spencer tolerates him, which as you know for Spencer Cassadine is a very big deal. If I didn't know any better I'd think Spencer actually liked him."

Lulu didn't know any of this and as Rocco's mother she thought she should have known. "When did Rocco meet Kevin?"

"Oh, a few weeks ago I went to visit Kevin on his lunch break - actually he had blocked the hour off and he was taking me out somewhere, I forget where, but when we were coming off of the elevators we ran into Dante and Rocco. I think Dante was just heading off to work and he figured dropping Rocco off at the hospital with Elizabeth was easier because she was just getting off her shift. I think Rocco was having a sleepover with Aiden or some such thing. But yeah, I introduced Kevin to Rocco and it seemed to go well. I'm sorry, Lulu, I figured Dante would have told you. It was a granola bar, it wasn't candy or anything sugar."

Lulu's heart felt heavy. She didn't care whether or not Kevin had given Rocco half a granola bar. She cared that her mother's boyfriend was in the early stages of developing a friendship with her son and she hadn't known a thing about it. She knew enough about her mother to know that Laura Spencer was protective to the point of going to the ends of the earth for her grandsons and that she wouldn't introduce the boys to just anyone, and Rocco wouldn't become instant best friends with just anyone, either. Kevin had to be something pretty special for that to happen. The idea that her mama felt comfortable enough and secure enough in her relationship with Kevin to take the step to let him meet her daughter's son, and also the idea that apparently even _Spencer_ tolerated or even liked him, was almost too much for Lulu to bear. It made her feel awful that she had spitefully missed out on so much of a relationship that was clearly so important to her mother. But, that would change and it would change today. Starting right now. Or maybe starting in a few days, once Sunday rolled around. She could use Dante to be a buffer at breakfast.

"Mom, I don't care about the granola bar. And….I meant what I said, mama. Please. Invite Kevin to breakfast with us. I know he'll come it it's you but tell him I'm the one inviting him. If he's that important to you then it's important that I get to know him, isn't it?"

There was quiet on the other end of the phone line for a long time. "Lulu, my sweet girl, it means the world to me that you offered, but I don't think any of us are ready for Kevin to be invited to family breakfast. That's too much pressure on him and on you. I think it's better that you and Kevin start out slow. You know enough about football to carry on a conversation thanks to Dante and Nathan, don't you? Maybe the three of us can eat at The Floating Rib one night and you can talk to him about football for a few minutes. He'd like that."

Lulu hated football. But her mama was extending an olive branch that she was very aware that she didn't deserve so she'd suck it up and talk football to Kevin for five minutes one night. How bad could it be? "Sure, mom, I'd like that. Um, you two pick a night that works for you and I'll be there. But - breakfast on Sunday?"

"I'll be there," her mom said immediately. Then her voice got quiet. "Thank you for inviting me, Lulu."

Lulu wiped at her eyes again. Her mama shouldn't be thanking her, it should be the other way around. She should be thanking her mama profusely for forgiving her and opening this part of her life to her when Lulu so far hadn't done a darn thing to deserve it. "You're welcome, mama," she murmured. "Rocco missed you. I... _I_ missed you. And I'm sorry that I hurt you."


	8. Chapter 8

**Here it is, the long-awaited M chapter! Kevin and Laura make it home from the restaurant safely and have a very nice evening indeed :-)**

 **So sorry for the MASSIVE delay, this chapter kicked my butt for whatever reason and I'm still not sure that I'm entirely pleased with it, but I can't keep staring at it. Lol. Special shout-out to Val and Amy for encouraging me when I am too much of a perfectionist for my own good.**

 **A/N = For the KevLaur bedroom scenes, go to YouTube and bring up Dierks Bentley's _"Black"_ and listen to it as background music. Please and thank you :)**

* * *

 _ ***thirteen hours earlier***_

Laura didn't remember how she and Kevin made it home from the restaurant in one piece and neither did he. From the minute he opened her car door and offered her his hand to help her out to them walking to the front door of his apartment the only thing she would let him do was hold her hand because that was honestly all she thought she could handle at the time. Kevin with extreme reluctance only let go of her hand to unlock his front door and she pressed her face into his shoulder to hide her smile of satisfaction that Kevin fumbled with the key and it took her normally-unflappable boyfriend multiple times to finally get the key twisted the correct direction in the lock. The same hand that opened the door immediately went to her lower back to push her inside. He flipped the light switch on, dimmed it, and used his foot to kick the door closed. As soon as there was a door between the two of them and the outside world he took her in his arms and pressed her against the doorframe, and his hands moved inside her coat to hold tight to her hips, his fingers digging into the fabric of her dress. No words were needed as she leaned forward at the same moment he did and his mouth met hers in a long, slow, scorching kiss. No sound filled the apartment except for her soft whimper of his name. The overwhelming need to breath was what ultimately made him stop and he didn't go far, touching his forehead to hers. His mouth pressed tender kisses down her neck and collarbone. Her hands fisted in his hair. "I've been waiting three weeks to kiss you like this," Kevin murmured.

"We're alone now," she murmured, purposefully guiding his mouth back to hers. All she'd wanted to do since Lucy left their table and upset Kevin so badly was to kiss him like this and let him know just how much she had missed him when he was in France. "Permission granted." Kevin's only response were his hands holding her hips firm and pressing her even more against the door. She lifted her arms and watched him in silence and arousal that got stronger by the second as Kevin's hands again disappeared inside of her coat and helped her out of it (who was she kidding by saying help, he practically ripped it off her and she watched it as it ended up as a discarded heap on the floor). That arousal got even stronger the next few minutes as they made good work of her being out of her coat. His knee spread her legs exactly like it had been during their first kiss at the hospital and this time there wasn't the excuse of cameras or Kevin being at his place of work like there had been at GH. This time she wasn't stopping him and he didn't show signs of wanting to be stopped. She didn't either.

Laura's mind flashed back to a different time when he had her against the door exactly like this; three weeks ago, the night before his daughter got sick. Except this time she wasn't going to leave him and this time she was going to stay the night. She wanted to. She wanted to stay the entire weekend here with this man and she wanted to wake up next to him in his bed. She wanted to do a lot of things with him outside of the bedroom, too. She wanted to finally stop hiding and be a couple for real.

Laura grabbed the lapels of his own coat and whimpered out loud when his mouth found a particularly good spot on her neck. "Kevin….oh, Kevin, please - please stop, just for a minute." She immediately and urgently cradled his face in her hands and kissed him hard enough to where there was sure to be no doubt how badly she wanted him and how happy she was to move forward with him and take this step in their relationship. He looked hurt and disappointed that she'd stopped him so she kissed him again. "You didn't do anything wrong," she whispered. "Not at all. But look at me. We have the entire weekend to be together just the two of us." She raised up on her tiptoes so her mouth and her breath was tantalizingly close to his ear. "I, for one, don't plan on leaving this apartment unless it's with you until you have to go back to work on Monday and until that time I'm hoping that we'll be spending most of the next couple of days in your bed. Do you have plans to let me leave and go back to Wyndemere?"

Kevin's eyes darkened and his arms tightened around her, and all he wanted to do was pick her up and take her back to his bedroom before they got into too much trouble out here. His voice was rough and raw with desire when his brain caught up with other parts of him enough to answer her. "God, no," he muttered. "Three days and four nights of you in my bed sounds good to me." He removed her hands from his face and encircled her wrists with his fingers, raising her arms above her head against the wall and holding her there. She instinctively moved to get closer to him but he held her in place so she settled and let him do what he wanted. She couldn't deny that watching him take control even this little bit was turning her on something incredible. Kevin's knee settled even more between her legs and one of his hands left the wall to run down her body until he stopped at her hip and started stroking. And didn't stop until her breath hitched and she rocked against him, moaning his name. Only then did his mouth move to her neck once more and his free hand pulled her into him. "It sounds damn good to me." He paid no attention to her protests for him to slow down and let her arms go only when he wanted them free so she could touch him like he was touching her.

"Kev...Kevin…" she breathed. His name left her lips in a short, strangled grunt. God, she wanted him. "Kevin, we've...we've got all night, babe. I promise I'm not going anywhere."

He mumbled something against her mouth and it took longer than usual for her to figure out that he was asking her if she wanted to get away from the door and move to the couch. She nodded in anticipation and barely-suppressed excitement because she remembered what had almost happened the last time they were on his couch, before she got scared and ruined it. He picked her up bridal-style and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her to the couch. It wasn't long before she was flat on her back on his couch staring up at him as he crawled carefully on top of her and took her face in his hands and kissed her so long and so hard she couldn't believe they hadn't thought to add a romantic component to their relationship sooner. The half-smile on his face and the look in his eyes when he looked at her made her pull him down almost immediately for another scorching kiss. This time wasn't going to be like three weeks ago. This time she was determined to do everything right.

"I'm - I'm sorry about Lucy," Kevin murmured, touching his forehead to hers and letting his hands drift downwards to her waist. "How she spoke to you and how she ruined our evening out, I'm sorry."

"She just sped up our evening-in portion of the evening so if anything we owe her a favor." She reached for his coat lapels as a hint that she wanted him out of his jacket and he complied immediately and wasted no time coming back to kiss her. "No more talking about your ex-wife," Laura murmured in between frantic but at the same time passionate kisses. "No more talking at all."

"I thought you'd never ask." His apartment was quiet in terms of talking for the next few minutes, but more than a few clothing items were discarded and her happy little moans of pleasure quickly turned into sharp cries when she rocked herself against him and his fingers dug into her hips. Her own hand that wasn't at the nape of his neck clutched a fistful of his shirt fabric and as their kissing intensified so did her grip on his shirt. Laura sighed and thought to herself that if she didn't already want more from the evening she would be perfectly happy just staying here on his couch doing this: for all of his relationship insecurities Kevin Collins was an amazing kisser. Kevin alternated between kissing her mouth and her neck just enough to where she knew he knew what he was doing was driving her wild and he liked it that way, just enough to where the apartment wasn't quiet any more because she was moaning in pleasure at a constant enough rate. She was quite happy doing that, until Kevin's hands stopped at the edge of her dress like he was waiting for her permission to go further. By now they had been fully making out on the couch of his apartment for at least twenty minutes by her calculations, which could be a bit hazy but she was still going with it, and Laura hissed out in pleasure and reached for him, in a rush undoing his tie and seductively smiled at him while she tugged at the tie and lifted the fabric over his head. Almost immediately she went back to untuck his shirt from his pants and it was only until Kevin placed his hand on top of hers to stop her and he pressed a gentle kiss to her nose that she realized that he was asking her a question.

She thought they were done with the talking portion of the evening and tilted her head allowing Kevin to easily begin a trail of open-mouthed kisses that went from her neck to her mouth. "Kevin…" she sighed. "W-what is it, babe?"

His head lifted from her chest and looked at her with eyes full of unbridled want and need and she dropped her head back against the edge of the couch and let him continue. "Zipper - or - buttons?" he murmured after a while, in between kisses. "Your dress. So I - know what I'm working with. Just to, you know, expedite the process when we progress to the bedroom portion of tonight." Laura started to laugh and it immediately got swallowed by his mouth claiming hers with a long kiss. His arms tightened around her and he traced her mouth with his fingers, concentrating on everything else he could think of except how she was moving beneath him and arching her body into his. He needed to get her to the bedroom soon, he didn't know how much longer either of them could hold out. Their desire for each other was too strong. He was sure she could feel him how much he wanted her. "You laugh but it's a legitimate question."

"Not….not laughing at you, it's just that - only you, babe, could use the phrase expedite the process when we're...here, on your couch, like this."

"You're not answering my question." Kevin propped himself up on his elbow and shifted just enough to where he was no longer on top of her but now laying beside her on the couch, one of his fingers touching a stray lock of her hair. His free hand dipped underneath her dress. "Tell me."

Laura stopped laughing and immediately pushed him back against the couch and moved so she was on top of him and straddling his waist. Two could play at this game. Kevin growled low in the back of his throat in approval of the sudden change in positions but Laura pushed her hands against his chest when his hands went straight for her hips. He tried again, undeterred, and she lowered her head to kiss him long and soft and slow, in the way she knew precisely from all the times they'd spent alone in this apartment that this way of kissing him was what drove him crazy the fastest. She smirked against his mouth when his hands abandoned her hips and went behind her back to fumble impatiently with her dress, even more so when she heard him curse. At that moment she knew she wouldn't want to be anywhere else but right here with Kevin making love to him for the first time. "What fun is it if I tell you?" she murmured, a hint of a smile on her lips as she pressed her mouth to his mouth, his neck, his throat, behind his ear, even. She motioned impatiently for him to lift his arms so she could take off his shirt. He was entirely too overdressed for what she - what they had planned and if he expected her to make this easier for him and give him step-by-step directions on how to undress her he had another think coming. Laura cupped his face in her hands and moved her mouth to where it was right underneath his ear, rocking against him just enough that one of his hands made a beeline for her hip. "Figure it out and do something about it. I know you want to."

And again when his girlfriend rocked against him just enough for the friction to be unbearable Kevin growled low in his throat and he knew that if he had any hopes of this night happening in the way Laura deserved they needed to relocate to his bedroom as soon as humanly possible. But she tugged at his shirt so hard that one of the buttons popped off and fell somewhere under the table and he lifted his arms so she could remove his shirt. "Why, Mrs. Spencer, I do believe you're trying to seduce me."

"Maybe." She reached for his pants next, unrepentant. "Is it working?"

Kevin grunted under his breath and he knew she knew exactly what she was doing and whether or not it was working, she was doing everything she could to get him to take her to bed. Something he planned on doing very soon, but not before he told her what he had wanted to tell her since she'd asked him to take her home. Even since before Lucy had shown up at their table and interrupted their date, and his need to tell her the truth of what was on his mind increased by the minute ever since. "I - I missed you," he grunted, closing his eyes and clearing his throat to get the blatant desire for her out of his voice. Desire was not the prevailing emotion he wanted to convey when he told what he'd discovered in his heart when he was in Paris concerning how he truly felt about her. He tried again and his voice sounded better, almost normal. "I missed you," he murmured softly. She stopped and cocked her head at the sudden change in mood but her hands left his pants and she smiled at him encouragingly for him to continue. He reached for her free hands and pressed soft kisses to the inside of each palm. "I missed you, Laura," he said, stronger, touching his forehead to hers for a brief moment. "I missed you so much when I was in Paris. I needed to be with Christina but spending three weeks away from you was…honey, it was so much harder than I thought it would be. Talking on the phone and texting wasn't the same. I - I missed seeing you every day. And I, I figured it out while we were apart how I really feel about you, that I - " Laura suddenly leaned forward and kissed him. She seemed to understand what he was trying to say even though he couldn't make the connection between his brain and his mouth to just say it. She seemed to understand why the mood had changed so drastically. Kevin reached out his hand to trace her cheek with one of his fingers. He was quiet for a long time and she waited patiently for him to say something. "You're my favorite person, Laura Spencer," he murmured. "You're the person I think about first thing every morning and the last person I think about at night and I just - wanted you to know that before we relocated."

This time Laura knew not to joke with him about her choice of words. She couldn't, not when he had just said possibly the sweetest thing he had ever said to her and she knew in the deepest part of her heart how much he meant it. How - how much he cared about her. "You're my favorite person too, Kevin Collins," she whispered back just as softly. "You've changed a lot in my life these last few months." She'd missed him terribly the last three weeks he'd been in Paris even though they both knew with his daughter is where he needed to be. She had felt his absence more deeply with each day that had passed and even getting a good-morning text from him every morning made her want to fly to Paris to see him in person. "I missed you so much that it's hard for me to even put it into words how much I missed you."

"Try," he growled. "Much later. After I've satisfied you and we're too tired to move I want to hear all about how much you missed me. I want to hear about anything you want to tell me." Laura reached for him as the implication of his words set in and Kevin stood up from the couch. He swept her up in his arms and her legs wrapped tight around his waist, her hands fisted into his hair and their mouths met in a long kiss that was filled with promise of what would happen next once they moved to the bed. "But until then, can I interest you in us taking this part of our evening to my bedroom?"

She grinned in spite of the growing-to-almost-unbearable-levels sexual tension between them and silently prayed a quick prayer of thanks to the stars above that Kevin Collins finally trusted her and trusted himself enough to be bold. "What are you doing?"

"If you have to ask I must not be doing it right." His hands folded underneath her bottom as he captured her mouth in another kiss. "We are going to my bedroom where I fully intend to make love to you." And he took her to the bedroom

And in under two minutes Kevin had dimmed the lights to his bedroom, leaving the door open just enough to where light still came in, and slowly set her down so her feet touched the floor - she had lost her shoes somewhere along the way but couldn't bring herself to care where they were, they could clean up later or even tomorrow for all it mattered to her in that moment - but continued to hold her firm against him. When he touched her cheek and asked her if she was still sure, if she wanted this as much as he did because there was no going back for either of them after tonight whether they made love or not, she hoped with everything in her heart that the way she kissed him would say everything she couldn't yet say with words. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed, swaying back and forth in his arms, as he started to kiss her. His mouth moved to her shoulder, her collarbone, the soft space between her neck and her shoulder, and finally, finally, back to her mouth. "Kevin..." she breathed, humming when the kisses got harder, longer, more intense. She wanted him. "Please, Kevin, please."

That had to be the response he wanted because his fingers gripped her hips and a deep and guttural sound came from his throat, his breath hot on her ear and dripping with unbridled desire. "You see, Laura, I had planned on taking this slow and worshipping every inch of you because I have waited for a long time to make love to you, but if you don't want me to push you up against one of these walls and take you right there, I would very much suggest you make yourself comfortable in my bed right now."

Even as the words were leaving his mouth Laura was backing up and tugging on his hands to bring him with her and she barely noticed when she bumped back against the edge of Kevin's bed. She sank down onto his mattress and crawled backwards towards the headboard and Kevin didn't need directions to follow her. She watched in amusement as the first thing he did was reach for one of his pillows and position it better underneath her head so she was comfortable. Thankfully the second thing he did was crawl on top of her and kiss her. But when he looked up the intensity of the way he was looking at her and the guarded, somewhat hesitant look in his eyes wasn't something she'd seen from him before since they'd started dating and all at once she knew what he had tried to tell her earlier. She knew it wasn't nervous energy because of the intimacy they were going to share for the first time with each other, the first time in years for the both of them, even though she could tell he was nervous. Laura knew right at that moment what he'd been trying to tell her when he'd told her so softly and so tenderly that she was his favorite person and the first person he thought about every morning. And she knew that once he said it she'd want to say it back.

Kevin brought his hand back forward from where he had been fumbling with the back of her dress, carefully tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear and tenderly capturing her mouth in a kiss. For a long while that was all they did and neither of them tried for more. He propped himself up on his elbows and pressed his mouth to her shoulder or her cheek once in awhile but for the most part his mouth was on hers and only towards the end before he spoke did he try to put his tongue in her mouth and deepen the kiss. Her arms locked around his neck and pulled him as close to her as he could get without worry about him collapsing on top of her. "You're beautiful," he murmured quietly. She was, and not just because he was going to see her naked for the first time and make love to her. Not just because of her appearance. Her strength, her drive, her commitment to the people she loved and her steadfast desire to always do better for them no matter what it would cost her - even one or two of the things she had been through in her life would have broken a lesser woman but not Laura Spencer. Not his Laura. He pressed his face into her neck and pressed feather-light kisses there, daring to rest all his weight on one arm and use the other hand to run up and down her hip. "You're beautiful, Laura, and I wanted you to know before we go any further that I -"

He stopped himself in the middle of his sentence like looking at her had caused him to lose his train of thought and Laura sucked in a quiet breath at the depths of emotion in his eyes then. She knew. She felt it too. Kevin slowly and carefully reached behind her to take her out of her dress and with unshed tears in her eyes she shook her head, removing one of her arms from around his neck and gently placing it over his to stop him. If he wanted to say what she thought he was, it would be helpful if he got the words out. "Kevin," she whispered in that same gentle voice he had used on her the entire night this far. "I'm here. I - I care about you very much. Say what you were going to say."

Kevin pressed his mouth to her neck again and she could feel him smiling, but she could also feel how unsure and nervous he was. "What makes you think I wasn't finished talking? What if I just wanted to kiss you some more?"

"Because I haven't heard you sound like this around me since that day you came out to Wyndemere to ask me out on a date. That was a leap of faith for you because it was the first time you'd done something like that in a very long time, wasn't it?" Kevin rolled to the side and looked at her for a long time before he nodded, running his hand up and down the curve of her back. Laura followed his lead and turned on her side to face him. She reached out to touch his cheek and lovingly traced the line of his jaw with two of her fingers, her voice staying gentle and soft for him. "It was and I appreciate it because it showed me how much pride you took in wanting to ask me out properly and it made me want to say yes. Now here we are and this time if it's okay with you I'm going to be the one to take the leap of faith and I'm going to say it first because I can't stand it to wait another minute. Does that work for you?" For a second she wasn't sure and didn't want to unwittingly step over any boundaries or unwritten rules he might have about the two of them and their relationship. "I haven't teased you in awhile about that from-the-fifties dating manual -"

"Something I am eternally grateful for," he interrupted with a little half-smile.

" - but I do know that you're traditional when it comes to some things about you and me, and I don't want to…"

Kevin leaned in and interrupted her with a soft kiss, his fingers absently playing with the lower hem of her dress. "If you think you know what I was going to say, then by all means go ahead."

"I love you, Kevin Collins," Laura murmured. Her hand found his under the covers and held it tight. "I've fallen very much in love with you. I don't know how it happened, I - I didn't expect to feel anything ever again like how I feel about you, not after my divorce from Luke. But I do. You have become one of the most important people in my life besides my children, you make me happy in so many ways that I didn't expect. You make my life better. I love you," she whispered. "I love you, I love you."

"You make me **_feel_** ," Kevin responded, and the normally-calm-and-steady voice she had come to depend on since she first met up with him that day in the MetroCourt was rough with emotion. His thumb stroked the soft flesh between her thumb and index finger. "And that was something I didn't think I'd have with another woman after - Lucy." He didn't provide any more information than that and she didn't ask, not after their confrontation at the restaurant and especially not considering Lucy Coe didn't matter anymore. "I didn't plan on dating again but you came into my life and somehow you changed all of that without me even realizing you were changing me." Kevin's hand reached up to touch her cheek and slowly wipe away the few tears that had fallen from her eyes. "I think I had figured it out in my head that I was in love with you when I was in France with Christina, but...telling you that I loved you wasn't something I wanted to tell you over text or over the phone."

She didn't realize she was crying out loud until his thumb reached up to wipe away even more tears. "I love you," she whispered again. Now that she'd said it once, she'd told someone that wasn't Luke Spencer that she loved them and the world hadn't ended like Lulu seemed to think it would, Laura didn't want to waste any more time not saying it. Even if Kevin still hadn't said the actual words out loud yet. "That night before you left to go to Christina when you asked me to stay...I wasn't ready then. For what it meant for me to stay or for loving you. But, oh, Kevin, when you were gone all I ever wanted to do was redo that night so I wouldn't have run away like I did." Laura scooted closer to him so their bodies were touching and she clutched his free hand in hers, holding it close to her heart. Because that was where he was now. Kevin Collins had had a piece of her heart ever since they'd started working together on Helena's clues, even though she hadn't known it at the time. Now she did. Now it didn't frighten her to love him. It didn't mean she was being disloyal to Luke no matter what Lulu thought. It meant she had found a man worthy of opening up her heart again and finding a way to be happy. "I wouldn't have asked you to bring me back here tonight if I didn't love you."

Kevin gathered Laura in his arms, cupped her face in both of his hands, and kissed her. Kissed her long enough and hard enough that his voice was ragged when he looked into her eyes and said those three words for the first time. "I had no intention of asking you to stay that night until I said the words," he murmured. "Not because I didn't want you to, but because I wouldn't have asked you to stay the night with me if I didn't love you very much." He kissed her again, soft and slow, keeping his mouth on her mouth only. The rest could come later. "I love you, Laura Spencer. I'd like to spend the rest of tonight showing you how very much I love you." One of Kevin's fingers trailed down her face, down her neck, down her chest until it stopped right at the edge of the moderately deep neckline of her dress. Laura's heart hammered in her chest as she waited patiently for him to do something else, but he didn't. Not yet, at least. "I don't know what it means that I just told you that I love you given that your daughter hates me, but -"

"Kevin, honey, no," she told him, snuggling into him even more and moving them both until she could rest her head on his chest and soon enough she felt him running his fingers through her hair. His other hand was occupied playing with the fabric of her dress - cautiously and in a way that was completely Kevin but she loved him for it anyway. "Lulu doesn't hate you. I promise. It's her own fault for not wanting to know how wonderful you are, but she doesn't hate you. How can she when she barely knows you?" Laura blinked so she wouldn't cry. "If she hates anyone in this room she hates me. She's actually made that perfectly clear. I don't know how it worked out who contributed what to that girl's gene pool but when she is angry she is _angry_ and when she gets like this and refuses to listen to reason I don't have a problem admitting she's the worst parts of me and of Luke combined."

Kevin could have kicked himself for bringing it up, for bringing that sad expression to her face. "Honey," he murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to her bare shoulder. "She doesn't hate you."

"You're sweet to say it but yes she does," she said quietly. "I took your advice and tried to talk to her while you were gone so I wrote her a letter. I told her I apologized for how everything happened but that I wouldn't apologize for dating you. I told her how I felt about you and how that doesn't jeopardize how I feel about her and her brothers. That was three weeks ago and I haven't heard from her since." Laura rolled away from him faster than Kevin could react to even reach for her and she moved on top of him and reached for his pants. "But my wayward daughter is not something we need to be talking about tonight. You said you wanted to spend all of the night showing me how much you love me." She pushed him further against the mattress and smiled. "And I know you're not one to go against my wishes."

And in that moment they switched positions and Laura found herself on her back looking up into Kevin's eyes that were so dark with desire she could hardly stand it. That look that told her the needing-to-be-in-the-bedroom portion of the evening was happening and it was happening now. Kevin reached up to touch her face and she nodded at the unspoken question in his penetrating gaze. He slowly let down the zipper of her dress and lifted it over her head, letting it fall to his bedroom floor. Her bra followed shortly thereafter and Laura couldn't stop herself from whimpering when he hooked one finger in each side of her underwear and soon they joined her bra and dress on the floor.

Her eyes tracked every move he made as he took off his pants and as her gaze wandered down his lower half it was blatantly clear to the both of them how much he wanted her. Laura's hands made quick work of taking off his boxers and Kevin slowly started at her stomach and kissed a trail up towards her face. He hadn't spent three months dating Laura without learning how she liked to be kissed and he was able to put those lessons into practice and adjust accordingly based on how she responded. "I love you, Laura," he murmured, still not quite daring to believe his good fortune that she was about to become his. "I love you, I love you."

Five minutes later and Laura's arms were around his neck forcing his mouth down to meet hers and she was unapologetically using him as leverage to press her entire body into his and consistently and systematically rock her hips against his. "Yes," she hissed under her breath. He started moving against her, too, and his breathing got faster. She took advantage of that and moved her mouth to just below his ear and breathed that she was tired of him being a gentleman, she felt it how much he wanted her and she wanted him now. "Yes, yes, keep doing that."

His eyes blazed even darker just like she thought they would and for the next long while all Laura thought about or felt was Kevin's mouth showering her with kisses and his strong arms holding her tight. His forehead touched hers as he leaned down to kiss her. "Laura, I -" His words caught in his throat when she grabbed at the ends of his hair and pulled him down for another scorching, hot, passionate kiss, and he had to literally force himself to stop and prop himself up on one elbow to look at her. "Damn, this is horrible timing. I...I don't know that I have protection, sweetheart."

Laura's head fell back against the pillows and the harried and desperate breath she exhaled turned into a deep, guttural moan as Kevin's fingers played with fire across her hips. "We don't need it."

Kevin quickly captured her mouth in a kiss before she could get any louder in protesting. "Yes we do," he said quietly, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead a moment later. "This….this is our first time and making sure the both of us are safe is important to me."

She grunted and let out an impatient breath, swatting his hands away from her and giving him a Look that was so much of a classic-Laura-Spencer-aggravated look that he almost forgot what type of situation he was in and laughed out loud. But Kevin had been on enough of the receiving ends of those classic-Laura-Spencer-annoyed looks in the last nine months, starting back at the beginning of their friendship, even, that he knew better and merely kissed her once more and told her to stay right where she was and don't move, he'd go to the bathroom and look. He murmured the next part more quietly; that he hadn't been with a woman in four years and hadn't seen the need to buy condoms when he'd moved into this place.

The gentle but confused look on her face that that quickly morphed into astonishment was one that would stay with him for a long time.

"I'm fifty-four years old, Kevin," she told him quietly but matter-of-factly, like he might have forgotten in all the months they'd known each other how old she was. She refused to let him leave the bed and traced tiny shapes into the back of his shoulders. "My youngest child is in her thirties and I have five grandchildren. If you must know, I haven't gotten a period in at least five years. You getting me pregnant with a classic late-in-life baby isn't something we need to worry about. As nice of an idea as that might be, I couldn't even if I wanted to." She guided his hands back to her waist. "Please, Kevin, I'm okay without a condom, I promise. I just want you."

He gazed at her with apologies in his eyes as far as she could see and Laura sighed in defeat. She took a deep breath and used all of her willpower, which wasn't much anymore, thanks to him, and sent him to the bathroom to check. Even though she was pretty damn sure Kevin knew his apartment and his personal bathroom better than she did and if he said he didn't have condoms because he hadn't seen a need to purchase any before her than he probably didn't have condoms. He returned no less than five minutes later and the despondent look on his face told her she was right. The look on Kevin's face got even sadder when he saw where Laura was, or rather, where she wasn't.

Laura glanced at Kevin from the other side of the room and gave him a soft and reassuring smile before she turned away and poked her head inside his closet. "I figured you didn't have any condoms because you would have been back to bed in two seconds if you had found one and as badly as I want you tonight I had half a mind to send you out to the nearest drugstore to go buy some. That would require you to leave, though, and you leaving would be punishing me as much as it would be punishing you. I don't see you as the run out to a drugstore and buy condoms late at night sort of guy, anyway." She purposefully wasn't looking at him when she said any of this and Kevin could only stand at the edge of the bed and smile at her bullet-pointed speech. "All the times I've come over here I haven't heard you talk about any particular neighbors more than others so I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're not friendly enough with any of them to feel comfortable enough to ask. I'm going to go out on another limb and say the only guy you'd be comfortable enough with to ask to borrow condoms is Mac and it's not like he's in town." Laura poked her head out of the closet again and bit her lip. "Staying in this room is a bad idea. Let's go out into the living room and watch TV, I get to choose what we watch because you're the one that forgot to be a Boy Scout. I like being able to learn new things but I'm not watching the History Channel again." She frowned and sighed when she couldn't immediately find what she was looking for. It probably shouldn't be too surprising, considering she hadn't been in Kevin's bedroom before, but it made her uneasy to be searching through his personal things when he was right there. "I'm not sleeping in that dress tonight, Kev, and if we're really not going to have sex then it would be a really, really bad idea for both of us if I slept naked. I don't know what shirts you have that are available for borrowing and I didn't want to go searching in case I took one you happened to like. Where do you keep your undershirts? I'll just steal one of those if you don't mind."

It took an embarrassingly long amount of time for Kevin to shake his head and break himself out of his Laura-induced stupor and blindly point to the dresser on the wall facing the bed. Laura had already adorned herself with one of his undershirts when he jumped onto the bed and crawled on his knees across the mattress to get closer to his girlfriend. He grabbed for her wrists but she was too fast for him and he got only air instead. "No, no, no. No living room, no clothes, no matter how good you look in that shirt, what are you doing?"

She looked at him in surprise and barely concealed amusement, the way the corners of her mouth curved into a little smile. Grinning and tugging at the green shirt to make sure it covered all of her that it needed to cover - the undershirt barely came to her thighs - she stepped in front of him and positioned herself in between his legs, kissing him. "I'm not going to pretend to understand why you're insistent that we use a condom, but if it's that important to you then it's important to me, and that's what we'll do. We have all weekend. You can go out and buy some tomorrow, I'll spend the time while you're gone making us something for breakfast that we can take back to bed, and we'll take it from there."

Kevin instinctively deepened the kiss and his hands went straight to her hips. Laura's vision for tomorrow and the weekend sounded wonderful and there were plenty of - graphic play-by-play images in his head of just what she meant by taking it from there after he got condoms. He lifted her onto the bed and into his arms. "After all that we've been through to just get to here you think I'm going to settle for ending tonight by watching TV with you?" he laughed. He kissed her again. "You don't think I came up with a plan for - alternative activities for tonight?"

Laura went to her knees and smiled, wrapping one of her arms around the back of his neck and pulling him into her for a yet another kiss. Her other hand entangled in Kevin's hair. "You came up with a plan in the two minutes you were in the bathroom?"

"It wasn't a complicated plan," he mumbled against her lips. Laura obviously wasn't too concerned with what the plan was because it didn't take long for their kisses to grow with intensity and passion or for his hand to slip underneath that - thankfully it was somewhat large on her - undershirt to touch her bare back and pull her even closer, close enough that he could feel her pressing against him. "I do have one, you know. A plan."

"You're going to need to show me," she whispered seductively. "I'm a very visual learner."

He mentally filed that for use tomorrow and nudged her forward towards the head of the bed, pushing her gently against the pillows. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and tried hard not to pay attention just yet to the fact that the woman he loved was in his bed, wearing a green undershirt of his and nothing else, and that by him pushing her against the pillows he had made that shirt ride up and it was now to where it showed the barest hint of her stomach. He moved her hair away from her face and kissed her on the mouth, her arms wrapping around his neck. "Do you trust me?"

Laura nodded without hesitation and stayed perfectly quiet, content to watch him. Kevin debated with himself internally whether or not to take off the undershirt she stole from him. He hadn't considered the idea that it would be as much of a turn-on for him as it was to see Laura in his shirt and nothing else, but it was. It was so much of a turn-on that he decided to let her keep it on. It wouldn't interfere with what he had planned for her. Laura's hand grabbed for his wrist and she looked at him confused. "Are you just going to lie there and stare at me, or -"

Kevin's eyes blazed dark. "I might not have been with a woman for a long time, but I'd like to think that I'm well aware that there are other ways for me to please you." He pushed her shirt up further and started a trail of open-mouthed kisses that started at her neck and went all the way down to her stomach, to the line where her underwear would be if she was wearing any. Which she wasn't, of course, because he had been the one to take it off her earlier, and he had never been more grateful to his earlier action than he was right now. He watched her carefully to see if she liked what he was doing before he proceeded with more - and from the way she was breathing his name and the way she grabbed for the sheets of the bed in a clenched fist, Kevin was sure that meant he could go forward. "Ssshh," he murmured, kissing her quiet. "Relax for a minute, it's just me. I'll do this as slow as you want."

Laura knew what he was going to do as soon as the words left his mouth and their eyes locked together. She nodded in anticipation and affectionately ran her fingers through his hair, telling him quietly how much she loved him. Kevin said the same and spread her legs apart. She kept her gaze locked on his even as Kevin went down between her legs and inserted one of his fingers inside of her.

What he got from her as a reaction was immediate and highly affirmative and he watched her and waited for her to get comfortable with one finger before he carefully pressed a second finger inside. She cried out his name in pleasure, loud and immediately. The way she groaned and grunted his name was like nothing he'd ever heard from her before and the only thing he knew now was that he wanted to hear that sound again as soon as possible. She started moving against his hand, saying his name over and over again in that same breathy voice that got to him like nothing had in a long time, and he watched as she gripped the bedsheets even tighter. He watched with pleasure as the woman he loved dropped her head back against the pillows as a clear invitation for him to scoot up and kiss her. Her hips rocking against his hand faster and faster as she pleaded with him to stop being a gentleman and do something.

"Kevin!" she gasped. One drawback about them both being so new to the sex game, so to speak, at least in terms of recent activity, was that she was certain to come faster than he was probably expecting her to. "Pleasepleaseplease...please, I -"

Kevin's hand and fingers never stopped doing what they were doing and he reached up to kiss her chastely on the mouth, but not for long. The way she was consistently rocking against him, arching her body against his to get as close to him as she could, her grip on the bedsheets, the sound of his name coming from her lips as a low groan - he knew she was close. But he could also see that her eyes were closed, and that wouldn't do. "Look at me," he requested quietly. "Look at me while I'm doing this to you."

His fingers hit the right angle and Laura let out a strangled moan and her eyes opened and locked on his. "More, more, now," she whimpered. "Please!"

"That's my girl," he murmured, his gaze never leaving hers. "That's my Laura." He watched for her reaction as his two fingers grazed that same spot inside Laura multiple times in quick succession and he quickly used his upper body strength and his free arm to gather her in his arms and hold her tight as she locked her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his chest. Kevin's fingers touched Laura one final time and she shuddered against him as her orgasm overwhelmed her. He pressed his mouth to the top of her head while she screamed out his name.

A minute or two passed and she was vaguely aware that he was holding her tightly in his embrace and pressing near-constant kisses to her hair. All she did was continue to hug him around the waist. She wasn't even embarrassed by the low whimper that escaped her lips when she felt him leave her. "Love you, love you," was all she could murmur when she finally found her voice. If that was what this was going to be like she couldn't wait until tomorrow. "Kevin, I love you."

"I love you, too." He said it quietly, almost as if he couldn't believe still that he was saying it out loud and she had said it back, lowering her back down to the mattress and immediately moving on top of her and capturing her mouth in a long, deep, passionate kiss. Laura's arms went back up of their own accord around his neck and from then she lost track of time, how long exactly they spent kissing, touching, exploring, and finally, just enjoying being wrapped in each other's arms, but the next thing she consciously remembered were how his kisses got more and more gentle until they stopped completely and he looked down at her lovingly and murmured something that sounded an awful lot like thank you.

Laura gazed at him in half-dazed amazement. "What in the world are you thanking me for?"

He got comfortable on his side and held his arms open for her, and she immediately took it as the invitation it was and cuddled into him, her hand finding his under the sheets and holding tight. His other hand traced tiny patterns into the undershirt she wore. Her shirt, now, for all the nights in the future that she would stay the night with him, and he hoped that was a lot. He wanted to wake up with her in his arms as many mornings as he could. "For trusting me tonight...for saying yes when I asked you out that day at Wyndemere…for being the first one of us to take that step and admit that you feel about me the same way I feel about you, especially when I couldn't seem to get the damn words out. For taking a chance on dating me - according to Lucy I'm not an easy man to be with. Any or all of the above." Kevin didn't realize he'd said the part he'd said about Lucy out loud until Laura's eyes brimmed with the beginnings of tears and she opened her mouth to say something but apparently thought better of it. It was just as well. He had Laura in his arms and in his bed, he didn't need to be wasting time worrying about his past with Lucy that he couldn't change. He curled his arm around her waist to pull her closer and ran his hand up and down the curve of her back, pressing his mouth to her shoulders, her neck, any part of her that he could reach. They were quiet for a long time except for a few times she would turn her head to his for him to kiss her, content to just be together and contemplate what had happened between them that evening - they loved each other, they were planning on making love for the first time tomorrow and they were going to spend the rest of the weekend together until he had to go back to work on Monday. Kevin finally broke the spell of contented silence and dropped a quick kiss to the top of her head. "I can hear you thinking, you know," he murmured. His arms tightened around her. "Tell me what's going through that brilliant mind of yours."

Laura brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. Kevin Collins was unlike any man she'd been with before and that he legitimately seemed to think she had a brilliant mind was one of the many, many reasons why. "You don't want to know what I'm thinking right now, trust me."

"Try me."

She turned so she was facing him, slowly letting her fingers run through his hair. "I'm thinking that I'm being horribly unfair to you by not returning the favor after what you just did for me. I'm thinking that you're forgiven at least for tonight for not being prepared, if that was your idea of an alternate activity. Much better than my idea of watching TV," she murmured. "And then I was wondering how it happens that you were so good at - that if you hadn't been with a woman for four years." Kevin looked so appropriately startled by her blunt honesty that she had to look down quickly at their joined hands and concentrated on stroking the inside of his palm with two of her fingers so she wouldn't laugh. "Which brings me to the thought I have now. I - I thought you and Lucy were divorced three and a half years ago."

"We did," he told her, not unkindly but in an abrupt tone of voice he rarely if ever used with her, that meant he didn't particularly want to think or talk about Lucy Coe right now. "I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I told myself that she had her morals, such as they were, and she didn't want to be sleeping with me while she was sleeping with Scott. But I worked late a lot. I - didn't know she was cheating but I knew she was pulling away from me and Christina so I stayed at my office some nights because it was easier than going home. The last year of our marriage wasn't fun, let me tell you that." Kevin turned his head to look at her and was struck by the look of gentle concern on her face. "And now I'm realizing that all of that was a completely inappropriate answer to your question, I'm sorry. You don't care about my divorce and it's not fair of me to talk about it. Especially tonight."

Luckily, if Laura was hurt or offended by his curt and then long-winded answer she didn't show it; she didn't react to his outburst at all except to scoot closer to him to lay her head on his chest. Her foot gently nudged his under the covers. "I care about anything that hurts you, and it's obvious that you're still hurt by what Lucy did to you," she murmured. "Please don't feel like you can't talk about it because of me." He stayed quiet, on purpose she thought, and she tried again. "It upset you to see Lucy and Scotty together tonight at the restaurant, didn't it?"

"Laura, I - I wasn't lying to you when I said I'd never seen them on a date together before, until tonight." He was looking at the ceiling instead of at her, but he was talking about it and that was a start. She'd take it. She only wanted him to be able to talk about it with her if he wanted to and clearly he did. He'd taken care of her and helped her with her Cassadine troubles without so much as a cross word for the past nine months and even though she knew intellectually that Kevin's ex-wife didn't compare to Helena Cassadine and all of her family, she wanted to be able to return the favor and be the steadying emotional presence he was for her. "Seeing her upset me. Listening to her talk to you the way she did upset me. Knowing that they are getting married upset me." Kevin quickly rewound his last sentence in his head and bent his head to kiss her before she could protest. "No, honey, it's not because I still have feelings for her. I promise you I don't. It's just that - Mac told me the truth when I asked him and admitted to me that Lucy and Scott had been seeing each other behind my back for six months before the Nurses' Ball ever happened. I knew it wasn't just a fling. Scott is Christina's legal father. Mac told me that Lucy and Scotty kept dating on the down-low while we were separating and while we were in the process of divorcing." Kevin continued to keep his eyes trained on the ceiling. "Sometimes it just makes me wonder what exactly our marriage and the family I thought we had meant to her."

Laura knew instinctively that Kevin would prefer it if she didn't say anything at all, so she stayed silent and let him hold her and draw as much comfort from her as he needed to. "Luke reduced everything about our marriage and our life together to an old sweatshirt once," she murmured out loud after a long silence. "A couple of years back when Lulu had been kidnapped by Stavros. We weren't together then but working together as a team to find our daughter and bring her home safely...one thing led to another and we kissed. It's not like I was expecting us to get back together but - Lucky had this sweatshirt as a kid that was his favorite. He wanted to wear it all the time, even when he outgrew it. Luke said kissing me again was like that. Familiar and comforting to an extent, but it didn't fit anymore." She sighed. "Luke and I hadn't been together for years, he had already been with Tracy at that point, but it still hurt. I was his wife for twenty years, we had two children together and all of a sudden he was looking at me and it was like none of that mattered." Her voice got soft, maybe a little wistful for what once was. "There were a lot of things about Luke Spencer that I told myself to look the other way about for Lucky and Lulu's sake when they were little, but - Lulu was sick when she was little and I had to find Nikolas to see if he could help her and Luke just made me feel - like a horrible wife and such a crappy person when I told him that Nikolas was my son and his father was a Cassadine. Like somehow that was my fault."

"Don't ever think that," Kevin said firmly, lifting her chin with his finger so she had to look him in the eyes. "You were kidnapped and held hostage on that island and made to stay there because they told you the man you loved was dead. Not to mention you were kept there for the sole purpose of breeding a Cassadine heir." He pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "You did nothing wrong and I hate it that someone that was supposed to love you made you think otherwise. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Lulu and Lucky have a half-brother that isn't Nikolas?"

"Yes, that would be Ethan. Luke's child with another woman while we were separated, which he actually tried to compare him creating Ethan with Holly to me getting pregnant with Nikolas by Stavros Cassadine." Laura stopped before the familiar anger and bitterness overwhelmed her. She reached out to touch Kevin's face with her hand and trace the line of his jaw with her fingers, leaning up to press a small kiss below his ear. Her Kevin. Her Kevin, now. She loved him so much. "I didn't tell you that story because I needed you to tell me it wasn't my fault. I know that now that it wasn't. I spilled my heart to you because you needed to hear me say it out loud that I've been hurt by a spouse just like you have." Her other hand went up to run her fingers through his hair. "I - I didn't expect any of this, Kevin Collins. I didn't expect Helena to die and leave all of us mysteries to solve - well, that part does sound like her, now that I think about it - and I didn't expect you to be the one to help me. Everything that's happened between us since...I can't say that I expected any of this. It's still kind of -"

"-scary?" Kevin finished quietly. "Because I know that it is for me. But I also know that you're worth it."

"The same for me." She snuggled deeper into the pillow. "I didn't expect to love you. I didn't think I could, not after what happened with Luke. These past few months with you have been really - great. You make me happy, Kevin. I'm glad you got up the nerve to ask me out and I'm so glad I said yes."

Kevin laughed and pressed a feather-light kiss to the top of her head. "That makes two of us." He glanced around his room and suddenly noticed just how devoid of everything but the essentials it actually was. "I, um, Lucy was always the one that wanted to watch TV when we fell asleep. I could take it or leave it and usually I ended up reading while she watched what she wanted to watch so when I moved here after the divorce I didn't even think about making room to put a television in here. I don't know what you prefer. If you want one in here I can do some rearranging tomorrow and make some space. I need to buy a TV, too. You can come with me to the store if you wanted to." Left unsaid but so blatantly obvious even Stevie Wonder could see it was the implication that she might start spending a lot of her nights with him in his apartment from now on. "My laptop's in the living room, I could go get that and we can log in to my Netflix account and see what you can find. If you'd like."

Laura understood what he was really asking and the idea of spending all of her nights here with this man, in this bed, didn't scare her like it did three weeks ago. The thought that she could go to sleep next to him and wake up to him for more days than tomorrow and the rest of the weekend didn't scare her, but she didn't want him to start making furniture arrangement changes or going to a store to buy a television for his bedroom because of her. Starting tomorrow night they would have much better use of their time in the bedroom. "Netflix and chill?"

Kevin's tentative smile and semi-blank stare before there was a glimmer of recognition made it clear he didn't really know what she was talking about and it made her feel horribly old. For heaven's sake, Lulu was married in her thirties with a young child. His daughter was barely out of her teens! "It means…"

Kevin held up his hand in a time-out gesture. "I'll have you know, dear, that I'm not so old that I don't know what Netflix and chill means. Christina might have mentioned it a few times that she'd have to cut our Skype session short because she was inviting one of her friends over to Netflix and chill or whatever."

Laura laughed out loud and the wounded look on his face mixed with shock and surprise only made her want to laugh more. "Did she say Netflix and chill or did she say she was inviting people over to hang out and watch something on Netflix because you would have had very different reactions depending on what she said." Kevin was looking at her and not saying anything so she decided that discretion was the better part of valor and chose her next few words extremely carefully. "Netflix and chill, Kevin, means that you invite someone over to your apartment or house or wherever to...you know." She knew it was coming and still winced at the look on his face as the realization sunk in, slowly. "Christina was trying to tell you that she is a grownup that occasionally has sex."

"And evidently that completely flew over my head. No wonder she could barely hang up our call fast enough last time," he sighed, letting go of Laura and again flopping back against his pillow, staring at the ceiling. He finally turned his head to look at his girlfriend who was still trying very hard not to hurt his feelings and laugh any louder. "Go ahead and tell me I'm an idiot."

Laura quietly giggled and moved on top of him to straddle his waist. "You are an idiot. Lucky for you I took that into consideration and fell in love with you anyway," she told him matter-of-factly. "But you are an idiot that is a very loving father and Christina is lucky to have you." She leaned down to kiss him, immediately abandoning whatever her previous plans had been when he pushed his tongue between her lips and deepening the kiss.

Kevin's hands gripped her hips to hold her still and they kissed for a few more minutes, until he gently rolled her off of him and told her he'd be right back, promising to find her a spare toothbrush somewhere for tonight and for the morning. Laura waited until he was gone to find her underwear somewhere on the floor and pull them back on and while she was at it she picked up the rest of their discarded clothes and made two separate piles in one of the chairs, a Kevin pile and a Laura pile. For now that was the best she could do. He returned moments later with one of the miniature travel-sized tubs of toothpaste and a plastic toothbrush that he must have gotten for free at the dentist. She hugged him on her way to the bathroom for his thoughtfulness and he caught her around the waist before she could let go and promised her he'd buy her a toothbrush of her own for his bathroom and anything else she might need that she couldn't bring with her from Wyndemere, if she was going to stay overnight sometimes. Laura didn't hesitate before nodding and the smile she got from Kevin in return let her know that was the answer he had been hoping for all along.

Laura brushed her teeth and was finished with the bathroom before Kevin even asked to use it. He was in there for awhile and she had a pretty good idea what he might be doing in there, what with how one-sided their "activities" had been, but she didn't say a word when he came back to bed. He got into bed beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her into him, to where her back was firm against his chest. Kevin pressed a kiss to her half-bare shoulder and his hand dipped underneath her shirt. "I have a confession to make," he murmured. "When you were in the bathroom I was thinking about what you were telling me earlier, when I said that we couldn't make love tonight without a condom and you went down a list of medically logical reasons why I wouldn't have to worry about getting you pregnant." Laura tensed slightly in his embrace but waited for him to continue. "I thought about it for longer than I should have, I think. What it would be like to have a baby with you. Getting to be a parent with you from the beginning. But then I thought about your daughter and mine and...Christina and Lulu would be mortified if we gave them a little sibling at their age, wouldn't they?"

Not for the first time Laura let herself think about what the possibilities could have been for them if she was fifteen or even ten years younger and she could have given him a child, and not for the first time it surprised her how much it hurt her heart that it couldn't ever happen. She wouldn't ever be able to see Kevin on the grounds of Wyndemere teaching the basics of football to a little boy that looked exactly like a mini-replica of his father. But he might be able to teach Rocco and Aiden football one day and the thought made her smile. "You'd be so cute with a baby," she murmured, thankful he couldn't see her face and couldn't see the start of stubborn tears. "I bet you were were adorable with Christina when she was little. Maybe one day you can show me pictures?"

Kevin laughed. "Lucy and I got Christina when she was three. We got the joy of skipping all the baby stuff and went straight to toddler. We started on potty training a few months after we brought her home and that was only a few months after Lucy and I had gotten married. That was so much fun."

"Oh, you don't have to remind me, I had one of each, I remember all about potty training. Boys and girls take to it very differently." She rolled over in his arms and reached up to touch his face, her other hand cupping the base of his neck so she could bring his face closer to hers to kiss him. "I'd do it, if we could. If I could," she whispered. "Have a baby with you. Even though starting all over again would be hard at our age."

Kevin got quiet and Laura was afraid all of a sudden that she'd said too much too soon, even though she hadn't been the one to bring up the conversation of babies first. He'd had a hard enough time saying that he loved her, after all. "Same," he murmured, quietly, reaching up to move a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Christina always wanted a -"

He stopped himself there and cursed himself for saying anything. There were private, very private hurts about his marriage to Lucy that seeing her again at the restaurant had stirred up and Kevin promised himself that he'd tell Laura anything she ever wanted to know, someday. When he was ready. He didn't want to have secrets from her, not important secrets about past relationships. He'd tell her someday. But that day wasn't today.

"But I couldn't even if I was young enough and it was possible." Laura didn't realize she'd spoken out loud until Kevin's arms tightened around her and his mouth pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm not going to bore you with the whole story so to make a long story short I fell down our basement stairs when I was eight months pregnant with Lulu." Kevin's arms held her closer, protectively; he was so close that she felt him breathing against her. "Luke found me later, I don't know how long it was...I was in labor and bleeding because of the fall...Lulu was born by emergency c-section...he told me later once he knew we were both safe that he was so afraid the entire time that he was going to lose both of us. All I really remember about Lulu's birth is what Luke told me."

For the second or third time that night Kevin was quietly contemplating everything. He wasn't a fan of Luke Spencer by any stretch of the imagination but he felt sorry for him for that night so long ago when what was supposed to be a happy time went so wrong so fast. Kevin knew exactly what utter fear and helplessness for the woman you loved looked like, especially when there was an unborn baby involved. He pressed his cheek against Laura's neck and breathed her in, tracing her stomach underneath her shirt until he felt a scar on her lower abdomen where a c-section scar would be, telling himself, reassuring himself that Lulu and Laura were both fine, obviously. They were both healthy and happy.

He couldn't personally vouch for Lulu's happiness, but she and her mother were both alive. Nothing had gone wrong. Not like before. Not like with him and Lucy.

Laura heard him earlier when he had cut himself off, she knew there was something he wanted to tell her but wasn't. But she wasn't going to push him. If he wanted to share he would in his own time. They'd known each other closely for nine months and tonight was the first time she'd heard him say more than three sentences about his marriage and his divorce. She wouldn't force him to tell her if he wasn't ready.

So she made a choice to lighten the mood. "Am I a bad mother if there is a mean part of me that wants it to be possible to get pregnant, just so I could see the look on Lulu's face when I told her?"


	9. Chapter 9

_**This chapter picks up directly where the last chapter ended and is rated M for two entirely different reasons which will be made clear when you read the scenes.** **The ending paragraphs to this chapter start the story arc that will change everything for Kevin and Laura and I hope you are as excited about this journey as I am! Happy reading!**_

* * *

For the first time since he had moved into his post-divorce apartment, Kevin opened his eyes to the sight and feeling of someone else next to him. It was strange, he had to admit, sleeping next to someone else when he'd slept alone for so long. He had awoken in the middle of the night having to go to the bathroom and moved to get out of bed but stopped when he realized Laura's head was on his chest, her body pressed against him and one of her hands draped over his arm. Kevin smiled and carefully brushed some hair away from Laura's face when he saw that they were in nearly the same position they'd settled into when he'd come back from the bathroom hours earlier. She looked so contented and peaceful he hardly dared to wake her, in fact he could think of worse fates than going back to sleep himself holding the woman that he loved, but now that he was awake he wanted her to wake up and see him. They had a whole day ahead of them of doing absolutely nothing and he didn't want to waste a minute of it.

"Laura…" he whispered, starting a line of feather-light kisses on her neck. He murmured her name a second time and she stirred and said a few incomprehensible words in her sleep. She stirred again and Kevin needed her to wake up immediately because the way his body had reacted to her pressing against him in her sleep only told him what he already knew, that he wanted her badly and they couldn't stay together in this bed for much longer and not act on their desires physically. He concentrated on waking her up in a way that warranted their first time waking up with each other and he stubbornly refused to let his mind remind him that underneath the covers she was wearing only his shirt and there were much pleasurable ways for both of them for him to wake her up. Much more pleasurable ways, so he shifted to where his mouth hovered just above her ear. "Good morning, sweetheart."

She opened one eye, the tone of her voice slurred with sleep and exhaustion, and tightened the sheets around both of them, a clear signal that she didn't like the early wake-up call for no reason and wanted to go back to bed. "I'm giving you a one-time pass because we haven't done this before, but I am useless in the mornings until I get coffee."

Kevin gently moved her to the pillows and extracted herself from her tight embrace, fully expecting to go get the both of them some coffee now that she had mentioned it and pushed back the covers to swing his legs over the side and get out of bed -

\- when he was unceremoniously stopped by a gentle hand on his arm and her sleepy eyes looking at him in confusion, and it was all he could do not to forget that they didn't have a condom and start the process of making love to her right then and there. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Coffee," he said in amusement, but his breath caught in his throat when he turned back to face her. She was sitting up in his bed with the covers pooled all around her, the top sheet held strategically in place against her even though she still had his shirt on, and was looking up at him with those god forsaken seductive eyes he knew were going to get him into trouble more than once this weekend. She was beautiful, just like this, and even though she was there and there was evidence of last night's clothes in chairs around the room he couldn't quite get himself to believe that she had spent the entire night in his bed. He leaned back over the bed and brought her face to his for a good-morning kiss and didn't pull away until he heard the delightful little sound of her groaning against his mouth. He kissed her again and again, deepening each subsequent kiss until her arms were around his neck and he was kneeling on the bed with his hands on her hips and ignoring her mumbled protests of morning breath. Kevin pulled away, slowly, tracing the outline of her mouth with his thumb. "You said you wanted some so I'm making us both some coffee. Then I'm going to bring it back here, get right back into bed with you, and we can decide what we want to do for the rest of the day."

"You are entirely too sweet." She touched his cheek and murmured those words so soft and tender he wasn't sure if it was something she was supposed to hear, but it didn't matter, because she tugged his shirt over his head and nudged him back to the bed and told him to lie down, she had something for him. Something she had a feeling he'd like. "I can make us coffee later. _Very_ later."

In the deep recesses of his mind Kevin remembered thinking that having Laura Spencer on top of him and taking control of him like this was one of the sexiest things he had ever had the pleasure of being witness to and it was a legitimate reason why he wanted to wake up to her more often. God, pleasure wasn't the right choice of words he could have thought of right then. Not when he wanted to hold on to his self-control for as long as it took for Laura to do whatever it was she wanted to do to him. He wasn't stupid to what she wanted and even if by chance he was, the way she pushed back the bedcovers and told him to make himself comfortable while she did the same, that would have been a clue. Kevin breathed slow and steady and never took his eyes off his girlfriend when she met his gaze with a wicked smile. She went down in between his legs and Kevin's already-wavering self-control took a nosedive.

She was too focused on touching him through his boxers and then slowly - achingly slowly, on purpose, she was doing this on purpose, he thought in frustration - releasing him from the confines of the fabric that he couldn't get her attention. Stroking him, touching him, stroking him again until she was confident he was close to release. "I told you last night, didn't I, how awful I felt that I didn't reciprocate after what you did for me. I'm assuming you were too much of a gentleman to respond, but I'm too much of a lady to let that go unnoticed. It was your turn last night to show me how much fun we could have without condoms, now it's my turn."

Kevin grunted. Laura had only been touching him for a couple of minutes and he was ninety-nine percent certain he wouldn't last another. She continued stroking him and he closed his eyes so he could concentrate on his words and not the feelings he'd repressed for so long. "Last - last night was about you," he grunted. He didn't want to make a mess on his sheets, not in front of Laura, that's why he'd left the bed last night and locked the bathroom door, but he was going to and he was going to soon if she didn't continue. "It - it was my fault we weren't prepared so I had to do something."

To his immediate and great disappointment she stopped all of her wonderful touching and crawled up to the head of the bed and propped herself up on her elbow to look at him. She touched his cheek and his reaction to her touch was instant. He wanted her to get back to what she was doing and nudged her back in that direction. Laura kissed his mouth softly. "I felt you leave when you got out of bed in the middle of the night, Kevin. You were in the bathroom. I know what you were doing in there." She kissed him again before he even had a chance to be embarrassed and he got a very nice view down her shirt when she leaned over him. Her self-satisfied little smile told him she'd done it on purpose just to get a rise out of him. "If you want something, babe, I want you to feel comfortable enough with me to ask for it. I want you to come to me."

Kevin tried everything he could to regulate his breathing and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder - sometime during the night his undershirt had fallen off her shoulder and she hadn't yet made any kind of effort to adjust it again. One of the hundreds of little reasons his self-control wasn't working this morning. Especially now, when she'd stopped in the middle of her hands-on demonstration of whatever she thought her turn was going to be and felt the need to talk about it. He just wanted her to get back to what she was going. Now, preferably, if she didn't have any other plans. "Laura," he murmured in a strangled, low voice. Her hand traced patterns on his stomach before dipping below his waist. All thoughts of him being a gentleman were gone when she went back between his legs and didn't right away touch him like he thought she would. "Laura, _please._ "

He ached to touch himself but as soon as his hand started to move she saw it and impatiently swatted it away and asked him what good was it for her to reciprocate if he did the work.

And she did, for the next five minutes. Five wonderful minutes that she disappeared between his legs and stroked him, until he was close and he knew she knew it too. "Come for me, Kevin," she murmured, her blue eyes locked onto his while she continued to stroke him. He cried out loud at her touch and all he could see in his head was her name floating through his brain. He jerked when she touched him again and fisted his hands in the sheets of the bed, his chest heaving with every orgasm-intensified breath. And he came.

" _Again_ ," he murmured hoarsely. His need and want for her was so powerful at that moment and Laura seemed to understand. But she surprised him again and took him in her mouth. The feel of her warm mouth on him, her free hands stroking his hip, the intensity of his feelings for her: all of it combined and was enough for her name to come roaring out of his mouth in a guttural cry, and for the second time that morning he felt the powerful emotions of a physical release.

Kevin had enough of the wherewithal to make a come-here motion with his hand. "Come here to me right _now_." Laura right away came to the head of the bed where she was face-to-face with him and touched his face with her hand, softly murmuring that she was right here. She stayed quiet after that and pressed gentle kisses to his mouth, his cheek, his shoulder, and nudged his foot with hers after a few moments. He waited until he had his breathing under control and was pretty sure he had muscle coordination back before he propped himself up on one elbow to look at her. "I love you," he said quietly, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her. He chuckled. "Now that's a way to wake up that hasn't happened in my life in a few years."

Laura was forced to bury her face into his shoulder to stop herself from laughing. "I should hope not." She lifted her head so they were face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and gently did the best job she could with her fingers to tame his bedhead. "I love you, too," she murmured, smiling. "Now that we said it for the first time last night I feel like we should be making up for all the times we were too scared to say it." She lowered her gaze to his lower body and the evidence that he still wanted her. "If you play your cards right, Kevin Collins, and you're a good boy, you just might get what just happened as a wake-up call for tomorrow and Sunday, **and** Monday."

His hands went of their own accord to the bottom of her pajama shirt. If she kept looking at him the way she was looking at him and insisted on saying things like that he would have to make his impromptu trip to the drugstore that morning while she was making breakfast. "Unfortunately, honey, I go back to work on Monday. I don't think it would be a good idea if I was distracted from my clients because I was too busy thinking about how you woke me up that morning."

She nodded and swallowed. Scratch that off the list for Monday morning, then. Maybe he didn't want her to stay on Sunday night if he had to get back to work the next day. She knew he left his house by six forty-five to get to his office by seven thirty to be ready for eight o'clock patients, but she didn't know what time he woke up on a usual workday. "Would it be better for you if I went home Sunday afternoon?"

Kevin immediately rolled on top of her, taking her in his arms and lowering his mouth to hers for a long, passionate kiss. "Honey, you can stay as many nights as you want to. I was counting on the whole weekend."

"So am I," she said quietly, wrapping her arms around him and using her fingers to stroke the hair at the nape of his neck. "If you don't get sick of me before then, that is."

The smile that stretched across his face was warm and inviting and it caused her stomach to flutter and her breath to catch in her lungs when he captured her mouth in another kiss. "I'm not too worried about that happening, Laura."

"I'm not either," was her quiet murmured response. "I just wanted to give you the option."

Kevin's hands went underneath her shirt and pulled her closer to him as he slowly ran his fingers up and down her spine. "What I want is for us to spend the weekend together getting to know each other," he whispered, his voice low and hoarse and making those familiar feelings of desire course through her, before he captured her mouth in yet another kiss. "What I want for this morning in particular is for you to stay right here in my bed while I make breakfast, I'll bring it back here and we can eat it in bed, and we can talk and figure out the rest as we go. Does that sound good to you?" He bent his head to kiss her neck. "If you wanted to stay in the apartment all day, actually….I wouldn't be opposed to that."

Laura's eyes shined with surprise and gentle amusement and then love as she guided his mouth back to hers. Her answer came in kisses and not words when she let him know his idea sounded like the best morning she'd spent in a long time. And for the first time, she realized she hadn't thought about Nikolas or Lulu all morning. If they were worried about her or where she was they didn't need to be. She was just fine - more than just fine - here with Kevin.

Kevin reluctantly left the bed with a whispered promise to her that he'd be back quick and Laura used that time to make fast use of his bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face with a washcloth, making a mental note to go back to Wyndemere at some point this afternoon to pack herself a bag and bring back some things with her. She would need some clothes at some point before Monday no matter what Kevin might think. She spied his closet out of the corner of her eye when she headed back to bed and for a moment contemplated searching for a pair of sweatpants she could put on but decided against it. His shirt was long enough on her and covered mostly everything, if they had their way they'd be spending the morning in bed, and she had a feeling Kevin would work quite nicely as a way to warm her up if she got cold. But the most important reason, the reason why Laura decided against sweatpants and got back into bed the way she was to wait for him, was the look she'd seen in Kevin's eyes that morning when she knew he was doing everything he could not to think about her wearing only his shirt.

She didn't ever want to be the reason he stopped looking at her like that.

She was sitting up in bed and rearranging the pillows for the both of them when he re-entered the bedroom with a tray of two glasses of orange juice and a bowl of assorted fruits and two forks. He - adorably, in her private opinion - apologized for the breakfast such as it was and said he'd take her out for lunch later wherever she wanted to go, but that being out of the country the last three weeks and only getting back yesterday hadn't left much time for grocery shopping. Not to mention, she heard him whisper as he carefully set the tray in between them and got into bed beside her, opening his arm for her to cuddle against him, he hadn't expected her to be here. Laura took her face in his hands and kissed him again and told him without words that there was nowhere else she'd rather be. She barely hid a smile when she saw the printout of the daily crossword from The New York Times on the edge of the tray and he admitted to her that he hoped they could do the crossword puzzle together.

And all of a sudden Laura knew one of the presents she would be sure to get Kevin for his birthday even if she had to go to every bookstore in Port Charles to find a Kevin-approved one: the biggest book of crossword puzzles she could find. She hadn't known he'd even liked crossword puzzles but now that she saw it in front of him it made perfect sense. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it or noticed before. Maybe if she looked online for speciality books she could find a book with a code-breaking theme.

The next hour and a half was the best kind of morning where neither of them had anywhere they needed to be and they were content to simply enjoy each other. Laura's phone beeped with texts from Nikolas but she ignored them and she didn't miss the subtle but grateful look in Kevin's eyes when she did. Most of their time was spent eating breakfast in bed and her every so often helping Kevin with his puzzle. Laura knew Kevin was smart enough to figure it out for himself what a seven-letter word for held without consent would be but he handed her the pen and told her to go for it. (She loved it that he was confident enough in his crossword-puzzle abilities to write the answers in pen). But mostly they kissed and touched and kissed some more and used their time together to do what Kevin had called earlier 'getting to know each other.' Which, if this was what he had in mind for now, she didn't want to let her mind go there quite yet for what he had planned for tonight. Kevin Collins was the type of man to have a plan, she thought, and she couldn't wait to find out for herself firsthand just what that plan entailed. The only time that Laura could remember him turning down a kiss from her was when his phone rang, his particular ringtone for work, and it had ended up being Dr. Quartermaine from GH. Laura had gotten slightly annoyed with him for answering the phone at all when he wasn't supposed to be on call until Monday and even more upset when he sighed post-phone call and admitted he'd have to leave for a few hours that afternoon for a meeting with human resources he'd been trying to set up for months to get his secretary a raise and they were only just now getting back to him. Laura understood the bureaucracy of the hospital and she didn't have a right to be annoyed, but it bothered her that their time to spend together was already getting interrupted and it had barely started. But he'd taken her in his arms and kissed her as soon as he had hung up the phone and whispered low in her ear that today was officially the least productive he'd ever been on his crossword puzzle and he didn't care, and she wasn't bothered anymore. They'd have the entire night to spend together in this bed.

The crossword puzzle, the phone call from Kevin's work, the little they'd managed to actually eat, all of it was forgotten for the next twenty minutes as they used their first morning alone together to continue to get to know each other. Kevin rid himself of the shirt he had slept in and somehow the top sheet got pushed to a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed. She reached for him and as he laid her down onto the mattress he started to lift her shirt, only one night of her wearing it but he had already started to think of it as hers, but stopped. "Far be it from me to ruin the mood, but -"

Laura reached for him again and took his hands and moved them back to her hips where his hands had been doing wonderful things not even minutes before. She wanted him and she was going to do everything she could to talk him out of his they-needed-a-condom policy. "Then don't," she all but ordered as she arched her body against his. He growled low in his throat in approval and she took it as a personal challenge to see how fast she could make him make that sound again. "We have all day and all weekend to talk about anything you want to talk about - after your meeting. After tonight. Unless you have some sort of moral opposition to making love in the daytime I don't know about?"

Kevin growled her name and she knew she had him dangerously on the edge of frustration and desperation. Desire, too, the way his eyes darkened when he looked at her made that emotion perfectly clear. Their kisses got more desperate and more heated with each passing moment until he was nudging her to move her arms so he could lift her shirt over her head and once he had done so started a line of open-mouthed kisses on her stomach moving up to her chest. Her legs wrapped around his waist to give him better leverage and right away he took advantage and gripped her hips tighter, burying his face into her neck. "You have to be the one to tell me to stop because I don't want to."

"Get out of here and go to the store," she groaned. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, dripping with an aching and all-consuming desire for him now. She was fifty-four years old and he was fifty-six, it was embarrassing how badly she wanted him. She didn't think she'd be able to take it for one more second if he kept kissing her and touching her like this without being able to take it to that next level. Such as it was already they were both mostly naked and involved in a pretty intense spectacle of kissing and touching. He started to lay her back down on the bed and she made a pretty convincing sound of protest and whined her displeasure. "Kevin…"

He held his position on top of her for a few more minutes and his voice was low and hoarse when he promised her he'd be back in twenty minutes at most. For a split second she could have sworn his eyes darkened even more when he made her promise to wait right here in his bed just like this, he wanted to come back and find her just like this. Kevin kissed her one last time and as she expected it got very intense very quickly and she didn't notice the phone ringing until she heard Kevin curse in her ear. She watched him as he got dressed quickly while at the same time talking none too politely to whoever it was on the other end of the line. Laura barely had a chance to kiss him goodbye before he practically threw the phone at her and ran out of the bedroom and left the apartment seconds later. She knew she couldn't possibly have heard him right when he had said the person on the other end of the phone was Lulu.

Kevin was back in fifteen minutes not twenty, with a plastic bag bearing the logo of what Laura had to assume was the nearest drugstore to his apartment, and a take-out box from Kelly's of what Kevin triumphantly presented to her as two of her favorite kind of muffin. He came back to bed and immediately kissed her and handed her the muffins, but he looked supremely pissed off and she decided it might not be the best time to tell him about her encouraging conversation with Lulu and the invite to breakfast on Sunday. She took the drugstore bag from him as well as the muffins and patted the corner of the bed beside her and asked him what was wrong. He didn't run into anyone they knew, did he? She frowned when that didn't even make him smile like she'd intended it to. Kevin sighed and admitted that when he was out he'd gotten another frantic phone call from Sofia his secretary telling him the meeting with human resources had been moved to 12:00 instead of 3:30 so he couldn't stay for much longer and they certainly didn't have time to use what he had purchased at the drugstore. He intended to romance her slowly and take his time loving her and he had a feeling she felt the same way.

Laura groaned in frustration and hugged him around his middle, burying her face into his stomach. Kevin's unsteady breathing and the way it took him a few minutes to speak told her that he wasn't any happier about the sudden schedule change than she was, but he pressed his mouth to the top of her head. "I love you," he murmured. "I won't be gone long. I'll come home to you right after my meeting is over and other than eating dinner we will spend the night in bed."

"I don't think I'll wait for you here," she murmured, absently tracing the buttons on the cuff of his sleeve. "I'll probably leave in a little bit and go back to Wyndemere to get some clothes and other things. It shouldn't take too long."

He half-smiled at her and told her he had already prepared for that and left her a spare key to his apartment on the kitchen counter if she got back before he did. They spent the rest of the time they had together wisely. Kevin even brought her to her first orgasm of the day. Retribution for what she had done to him that morning, he told her as he held her against him as she gripped his shoulders and cried out his name. He'd held her until she was finished and promised her a lot more where that came from when he got home that night.

Laura looked forward to it with every piece of her heart. They kissed for twenty more minutes and thankfully made it out of bed before his set alarm rang and told him that he needed to leave if he didn't want to be late.

* * *

Sofia's hesitant voice cracking through the intercom was so unexpected it caused Kevin to delete the last paragraph of the clinical report he had been working on before he'd realized what he had done. Luckily there wasn't much damage done, he had been so distracted most of the afternoon about knowing he would be going home to Laura waiting for him, that he'd typed the same paragraph twice and at least half of it again a third time. The last text he'd gotten from his girlfriend said she'd only just left Wyndemere and would be back to his place soon so Kevin had decided to stay in his office and wait awhile before leaving. He didn't want to go home to his apartment and have to wait for her, he wanted her to already be there. He wanted to be able to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything that had happened since he left her that morning.

He picked up his phone and scrolled through his conversation with Laura starting earlier that afternoon when he'd told her he was going to stay at the office to get some work done. He figured she had assumed it had to do with his scheduled meeting with human resources and had told him that was fine with her. Kevin didn't understand what had gone wrong in the communication between his office and human resources and why he had been called in for a meeting that as it turned out wasn't on the calendar. Monica Quartermaine had confirmed the call to him this morning about the finally-scheduled meeting between him and human resources but when Kevin had spoken to human resources about the last-minute change in meeting time they had no record of a scheduled meeting with him, at the original time or the rescheduled time.

From there he had come straight to his office to have a chat with his secretary to see if she still had the emails she had told him over the phone about, from the HR department. Sofia had turned white as a sheet when she couldn't find the either of the messages in her inbox and had sworn up and down that they'd been right there not even half an hour earlier. Kevin had promised her that he believed her, and he did; Sofia was a wonderful help to him ever since she had started working for him and if she said that she had gotten email messages from HR confirming the appointment time then she had gotten an email. She had no reason to lie.

Even after checking the spam folders and the junk folders and even the trash folders she hadn't been able to find trace of the messages and he had finally told her not to worry herself about it, just to put in a call to IT for him and they could send someone down on Monday to see if there was a problem with the email server. His afternoon had just been blown for no reason and he didn't want to worry anymore at that moment about why.

He'd spent the next two hours after that in his office catching himself up on clinical reports and transcribing patients notes and everything that had been left unfinished when he'd gone to Paris so he would be at least somewhat caught up when he returned to work Monday. There weren't any patients on his schedule - he'd instructed Sofia to block off three morning hours for paperwork - but Kevin liked to be prepared for any undue emergencies.

His phone buzzed every so often with a text from Laura and every time he swiped his thumb over the phone to unlock it and saw her name it made him smile. Her last message was sent only ten minutes ago.

 _I'm back at your place and put my things away for the weekend. I used the space that was available, don't worry, I didn't move anything of yours. I'm sorry you had such a frustrating afternoon, Kev. We can talk about it later. Much later ;)_

Right this second his phone lit up with another text that only said three words. _Come home soon._ And with that message Kevin folded the papers of the files he was working on, locked that folder as well as the other most pertinent patient files in his desk drawer, and made the executive decision to close the office early. He wasn't even supposed to be here today. Sofia was always on his case about never taking a vacation or time off, this was a start. He was the boss and there wasn't harm in taking off two hours early on a Friday. Not when he had Laura waiting for him and for possibly the first time since he and Lucy had divorced Kevin was happy to have a good reason to want to go home.

Kevin snapped the locks to his briefcase closed and pressed the button to shut down his computer, crossing his office to retrieve his jacket from it's hook on the back of the door, and when he went back to his desk for his briefcase and phone he pressed the button on the phone to take it out of hibernation mode. Laura's smiling face looked up at him from the picture he had as his lock screen - a picture he didn't think she even knew he had taken, much less that he had it as his lock screen screensaver - and as soon as he got to his car he was going to call her. Ask her what she wanted him to pick up for dinner, apologize for staying the afternoon to work when he didn't have to (seventeen years married to Lucy had instilled in him the notion to always be the first to apologize, even if he didn't think he needed to be apologizing for anything), and let her know that he'd be back home to her within the hour.

He tucked his phone into his inside jacket pocket and reached inside the desk for the keys to his office so he could lock up. He told Sofia to pack up her things, that part of his apology to her for being rude to her earlier was for both of them to head out early today, and locked up his office while he waited for Sofia as she gathered her papers together at her desk, shut down her computer, and retrieved her purse. "I'm sorry if I was short with you earlier, Sofia, you were just doing your job. Like I said, we'll work it all out on Monday. I'll take the heat for it if it comes back to us. You didn't do anything wrong. If anything it was human resources that screwed up. But thank you for calling me and for everything that you do for me to make my life easier around here."

Sofia smiled but was already concentrating on the text messages on her own phone, and Kevin had to make the hand motion for her to move it along. She grinned and stepped outside of her little desk area and headed for the door. "That's what you pay me for, Dr. Collins."

"Yes, well, you are worth whatever it is they pay you and more. I will do what I can to work on that raise for you, I promise. I'll see you on Monday, Sofia, have a good weekend. Be good and be safe."

She glanced over her shoulder at him with mock-offense. She'd heard nightmares from her friends and professors about her first "real" job out of school but as far as bosses went she knew she was lucky. Dr. Collins treated her like a person and not simply an employee fresh out of school he could torment and treat badly. "Why do you always say 'be good and be safe' like it's a mutually exclusive thing?"

Kevin took a minute to look for the correct key that would lock the main office door but really he was waiting for Sofia to walk out the door in front of him. When they were the only two in the office he liked to at least see her to the elevator. "You are only three years older than my daughter, Sofia, and I tell her that all the time when she tells me she's going out. It's my way of looking out for you."

Sofia smiled. Dr. Collins really was too sweet for his own good and didn't deserve what his ex-wife had done to him, and in that regard she was so glad for him that he had Laura now. Dr. Collins had been so miserable in his personal life ever since she'd worked for him that it was so great to finally see him happy. Like she didn't know her boss was leaving early on a workday for the first time in forever because he more than likely had plans with his girlfriend. "I will be fine, Dr. Collins. David is already here to pick me up, or at least he will be in ten minutes. And, Dr. Collins, I have an older brother already, I don't think I need another one." She caught the partially-wounded look on his face and laughed out loud. "Well, I figured you might fire me on the spot if I told you to your face you were old enough to be my dad. Then I'd never get my raise."

Kevin vaguely remembered a David, Sofia's on-again off-again boyfriend, and the only reason he knew that much was because Sofia took personal calls at her desk more often than he liked and she didn't have much of an inside voice. "No, I wouldn't. Laura won't let me fire you."

Sofia hit the button for the elevator when she reached it first. Dr. Collins was right behind her. "She's good for you, Dr. Collins. Much better than your ex-wife. Don't let her go, okay?" She pressed the button to the floor she needed. "David will be there waiting for me, you don't need to walk me to my car. I'm fine."

The doors opened to the emergency room floor, where Sofia had told him her boyfriend was waiting for her at that entrance. "You're sure?" Sofia nodded and Kevin shook his head to himself when she walked down the hall and then looked back at him, grinned, and told him to have a good date with Laura. He rolled his eyes and stepped back into the elevator, pushing the button for the floor to the parking garage. The elevator soon opened into the semi-darkened garage and Kevin headed to the left, the direction that he went ninety-five percent of the time.

But he'd gone more than halfway down the first line of cars until he remembered that today he had parked somewhere different than his assigned parking spot - he had been running late to the meeting that never happened - and backtracked and went to the right instead. While he walked Kevin reached inside his jacket pocket for his phone, unlocked it, and pressed the envelope icon for recent text messages. Laura's name and number came up first, in bold, like he thought it would.

Laura's response had come practically immediately after he'd sent the question about dinner and Kevin was glad he was alone and no one but him would ever read her answer. It was meant for him only, clearly.

 _Get something for dinner that will keep for breakfast. I just want you._

Kevin checked his watch, saw that it was a little after four and quickly calculated in his head that he could make a fast grocery-store stop to get something they could heat up in the microwave for a midnight snack and he could still make it home to Laura before the hour deadline he'd told her. There was a voice in his head that told him to be smart about this, he was fifty-six and not seventeen, neither of them were teenagers anymore, but he didn't listen to the little voice. He had Laura waiting for him and he was going to do anything he could to make her happy. And that was before he got home and was going to spend all night making her as happy as he possibly could. He heard a car door slam in a far-off direction but was consumed in his thoughts of Laura and what would happen between them that night that he didn't snap to attention like he usually did. Instead he shrugged and slipped his phone back inside his jacket pocket and reached for his car keys to click the unlock button when -

\- footsteps pounded behind him and they got louder and louder, faster and faster, Kevin didn't see the two men dressed in all black until they were within mere inches of him and one of the men had a wood baseball bat in his hands.

And before Kevin's brain even had time to scream at him to defend himself the first of the two men must have made some sort of signal to the other. The bat came swinging at his head full force and Kevin felt an explosion of pain at the base of his skull.

From then on there was nothing Kevin could do. The man that hit him - or was it the one that hadn't hit him? He needed to remember everything he could so he could be a productive witness to the police once this was over - grabbed him around the waist as he fell and slammed him to the ground. He felt the knife before he ever saw the long blade stabbing him in the stomach. Stabbing him over and over again, sometimes pulling the knife out only to stab him in the exact same spot again; the knife twisting, _twisting_ , stabbing him over and over, until Kevin welcomed and hoped for unconsciousness so he wouldn't have to feel how much he hurt.

The man that wasn't stabbing him continued to stand behind him, holding Kevin's head between his own feet and holding Kevin's arms so he couldn't fight back, the other stabbing him so many times that Kevin stopped counting only because he lost track. Christina's face floated in front of him, a three year old with brown eyes and bouncing curls, and the only thing he could think about now was how happy he had been to be her father. He could see in his mind the look on Lucy's face when he had brought Christina back to her the day of their wedding. He remembered the day that he'd come home from work in an awful mood to be met at the front door by his wife holding their daughter, remembered Christina reaching out her little arms for him and saying Daddy for the first time. Kevin held on to the thought now of how happy he was he'd gotten the chance to spend those three weeks in Paris with her.

Kevin thought about how Laura liked to tease him about Christina giving him grandchildren someday soon and decided right then and there that he was going to do everything he could to be a part of that whenever it happened. He wasn't going to die here, not in an empty parking garage. He kicked his feet as hard as he could in the second man's direction but his attempt at a defense mechanism only seemed to enrage the man further and Kevin felt the knife stabbing him three more times. The man holding him in place squatted down and spoke harshly in his ear in a language he didn't understand at first, but when he heard Laura's name Kevin instantly stopped fighting. Both men laughed cruelly at the effect the name of the mystery woman had on their assigned target and then it was over. There was no more stabbing. Kevin saw the knife dripping with blood as it pulled out of his stomach for the final time.

That was the last thing he saw, too, because he heard footsteps shuffling and saw out of the corner of his eye that the man that wore high top boots, his right foot was right next to Kevin's head. Flashes of pain exploded at his temple where he was just kicked and everything mercifully went black.

Kevin came to he didn't know how long later, opening one eye slowly and then the other, closing them both right away and hissing out in pain when the simple act of opening his eyes made his head feel like it was going to explode. His attackers were gone, at least he couldn't see them anywhere which was good because they weren't hurting him anymore, and so was his car and briefcase. He remembered having his briefcase in his hand and he didn't see it. Probably his car keys were gone too, and that was his first clue he was hurt badly because of course his keys had to have been taken if his car was gone, unless the men that attacked him were adept at hotwiring a car. He didn't know why he even thought of that. Blood streaked across the parking lot in large amounts - they must have taken him somewhere that wasn't where they had attacked him. But why? Blood was all over: the side of his head, his arms and hands were scattered with defensive wounds, his stomach was more like one gaping wound rather than multiple separate stab wounds, his shirt was saturated with blood and when Kevin carefully felt the back of his head to self-assess how bad he had been hit because he remembered the first hit had been back there his hand came back stained red and oozing blood between his fingers. There were no cars around that he could see close to him. Nowhere to go for help. He didn't know where he was.

Kevin clenched his two hands into fists at his side and fought against the horrific pain. He forced himself to open his eyes and take inventory of where he was, pushing past the so-bad-it-made-him-want-to-throw-up pounding in his skull. Sweat trickled down his face. Too much work to keep his eyes open, hurt too much. But he had seen that he was half-seated, half-slumped against a concrete wall in what amounted to a dreary and dimly lit corner of the parking lot. He had also seen the orange cones, this section of this level was sectioned off for construction so there were no cars and there would be no reason for any cars or people to come this way. It would be up to him to get himself out of here or get help to him. If he was still on the same level he knew there was an elevator clear on the other side. There was so much blood. Kevin knew the basics of medical school even though he had specialized in psychiatry. He didn't know how long he could survive down here without care if he had lost this much blood already. Kevin tried to move to help himself but every move he tried to make was torture and brought with it more pain than he had started with, so for what felt like forever he stayed perfectly still and took labored, unsteady breaths. There was so much blood. He tried to concentrate on saving up enough reserve of energy to be able to open his eyes again and until he decided to open his eyes he would think about and try to strategize his next move.

Except thinking didn't work out so well, either. Thinking exacerbated the pounding in his skull to a level he didn't think possible and for a second he considered not fighting it anymore and going to sleep and hoping someone would find him. Surely someone had to notice all the blood and would follow it to where he was. Andre Maddox parked on this level. Kevin didn't know if he was working today, though. White spots floated in front of his eyes when he tried to open them even for a second and he closed them again in resignation. He thought about the few people he had in his life that meant something to him. Mac. Lucy. Christina. Laura. _Laura._ _ **Laura**_ _._ He needed to get out of here and get help. He needed more time with Laura, he needed more time, moretimemoretimemoretime, he needed more time to be with her and to tell her how much he loved -

Kevin opened his eyes and kept them open, stubbornly fighting the panic and the bile creeping up his throat as best he could. For the first time he saw his jacket with his cell phone falling out of the pocket a few feet in front of him. He wasn't sure why his attackers hadn't thought to look for one but he wasn't going to question it. Not when he had a lifeline now and a way to get himself help. But his phone was so far out of reach and he couldn't move. He didn't know if he could risk the effort in trying to move. He'd tried earlier and just trying to get himself in a better sitting position caused him to almost pass out. The part of his brain that was still logical told him that if he went back to sleep he might not wake up or be found in time to be saved.

So he had to try no matter what it cost him right now in terms of pain. Because of Laura. Lauralauralaura. He had to find a way to get to his phone and call her for help. Call her. She was so smart and so pretty and so wonderful, she'd know where to find him and get him help. She knew where he was. She knew he was just leaving work and she knew what level he parked on. She was so smart. He loved her so much.

Kevin slowly lifted his head and stared in a sickening dread at the wall where his head had been propped up against and how that wall was covered with blood. Vaguely he remembered one of the men grabbing his leg when he had tried to fight and remembered the horrible-sounding crack when the bone had broken, and guessed that was part of the reason why he had passed out. He didn't understand why his ankle and leg didn't hurt right now when his ankle was twisted at such an unnatural angle and was pretty sure because of that he couldn't walk and was going into shock. He wasn't sure exactly which was worse, but for right now that didn't matter. All that mattered, the only thing he cared about now was getting to his phone and getting in contact with Laura. But that required sitting up. Which required moving. And that was going to hurt like hell, Kevin knew.

Think about Laura, he coached himself. Think about Christina. Think about living for your daughter and think about wanting to get home to Laura. Kevin again balled his hands into fists and clenched hard to give himself something to focus on and he counted to ten. He gave up almost immediately because, wow, it didn't take long to count to ten at all, why were numbers so close together, and he counted to twenty instead, and once he got to twenty Kevin counted to three in his head and went for it. Fighting desperately against the indescribable and inhumane pain that spread like wildfire down his stomach and entire body as soon as he collapsed onto his hands and knees.

Blood seeped out of his shirt at an alarming rate and it took an inordinate amount of time for the little area in front of Kevin to stop spinning and for the floor to come back into focus so he could start to crawl. It took even longer for him to be able to comprehend that the animalistic grunts he heard thrumming in his ears were coming from him. It hurt like hell even more than he thought it would.

But he could see his phone and every time he put one hand in front of the other and dragged himself forward he could see it getting closer to him. The elevators were too far away to even try to get to but he could get to his phone. He knew how to get to it. All he needed to do was keep moving forward like he was doing. All he needed to do was to keep moving forward and get to his phone and he could call Laura. He'd be able to hear her sweet voice one more time and tell her how much he loved her and get her to find him, and then once that was done he could go to sleep.

He was wearing his watch so he knew that it was taking him a long time to travel the few feet he needed to get help. So many times he had to stop to let himself recover. Blood followed him wherever he went. The crawling took so much out of him that his face was drenched with sweat not even two minutes into his crawling but finally, finally, Kevin was close enough to his phone that he could reach out and grab it. Before he did that he had to lie down. It was so hard to do this.

Blood appeared instantly on the phone wherever Kevin touched it, but he didn't care. The pain was constant and enough to make him grunt in agony but of course no one could hear him. He wanted Laura. The white spots in front of his eyes were moving back and forth so fast it made it so aggravatingly hard to concentrate, but he had to push past it and call Laura. He had to. He couldn't give up, not now, not after he'd worked so hard to even make it here. Even when his head pounded with every thought and it was all of a sudden impossible to breath without agonizing pain in his stomach and ribs. Taking breaths meant that he bled more and hurt more, so he tried not to breathe very much.

Kevin closed his eyes for a minute of blessed relief and dug his free hand into his thigh when he opened his eyes again, this time the hurt so overwhelming that he cried out loud. It took every molecule of his power to power through all of the pain to concentrate on all the numbers on his phone and push the one number he needed. Two. Laura Spencer was speed dial number two on his phone so he only needed to press the number two. Two was right up there on the top next to the one and three. He needed to press it and call Laura.

He heard the first ring, then the second. Tears swam in his eyes at the pain when he pressed his hand to the back of his head and when he brought his hand back to his face he saw even more blood. He carefully turned his head to the side and even more blood gushed and it was only then that he pressed his hand to his neck and felt blood and saw the fresh knife cut there. Breathing was harder to come by now and each breath he took felt like he was being stabbed all over again. He couldn't do this. He couldn't stay here and die. He had to go for the elevators. Laura wasn't answering. I'm sorry, Lucy, he would later remember thinking helplessly as he fought through the indescribable pain for the last time and wavered in his resolve to try for the elevators. I know you're mad at me but please, if you ever loved me at all, forget about how you feel about me now and make sure Christina knows how much I loved being her daddy.

Kevin didn't try for the elevators. The ringing of the phone faded softer and softer until he could no longer hear it and somewhere between the fifth and sixth rings Kevin stopped fighting it and let the phone slip out of his hand. His head hit the concrete.


	10. Chapter 10

She stood in the middle of Kevin's bathroom and gave herself a critical once-over in the mirror, second and even third-guessing the classically-styled blouse and the pair of nice, dark blue jeans she had ultimately decided to wear for their night together. She fidgeted with unscrewing the top to her eye shadow and wondered not for the first time why she worried so much. Elizabeth had given the outfit a virtual thumbs-up when Laura had texted her the picture a couple of hours ago and even Lulu had told her that the jeans were perfect, form-fitting and figure-flattering in all the right places and Kevin would love taking her out of them. (She hadn't been sure which of them had been more embarrassed when Lulu had actually said that last part out loud. Her daughter promptly had invented a Rocco emergency as an excuse to get off the phone and that had been the end of that.) No, the phone message she'd overheard from Lucy was just making her think too much, that was all. All three renditions of that phone message.

Laura hadn't meant to eavesdrop, of course, even though she was in Kevin's home without him as an invited guest he was still entitled to his privacy. She'd simply been in Kevin's bedroom unpacking her small bag of clothes for the weekend when his house phone started to ring and soon after the answering machine picked up. It wasn't her fault that Lucy's apparently normal decibel of voice was so loud that she could hear Kevin's ex-wife perfectly all the way from the bedroom when the answering machine was in the kitchen and it wasn't her fault that Lucy had enough to say to Kevin that she called three times after the first call to make sure she had said everything she wanted to say. Laura shook her head as she reached in her makeup bag for her lipstick. Part of her felt sorry for him for having to put up with an ex-wife like that, but she promised herself she'd tell him about the messages, if he didn't see the flashing red light himself. But not tonight.

There was a fourth and a fifth message on the machine that would make him happier, she thought to herself as she capped the lipstick and left the bathroom. Mac Scorpio wanted to talk to Kevin about her (Mac had actually used Laura's name in the message, Laura would have to remember to tease Kevin about that later) and Christina had figured out a time that would work for her to visit New York and she wanted to make sure it worked with her dad's schedule. Laura also heard the young woman admit in the message that she wanted to avoid her mother if at all possible, that was something for Christina and Kevin and Lucy to work out. Laura knew enough to stay out of that particular minefield as much as she could unless Kevin asked for her opinion, and even then she had to be careful with what she said. For Kevin's sake no one wanted a repeat of last night's unfortunate scene at the restaurant.

She went to the kitchen to retrieve her phone, glancing at the flashing neon numbers on the microwave all the while. The last thing Laura Spencer wanted was to act the stereotype of the nervous and suspicious girlfriend because Kevin was late but he was forty minutes late. When she'd talked to him it was just after four and he was just leaving work and he said he'd be home within the hour. The unspoken _I'll be home to you soon_ and the gentleness in his voice told her that the end of the hour would be the latest. It was five-forty.

She hoped he hadn't stopped along the way to get something substantial for dinner, she'd told him before she didn't want much. She didn't want much in the way of food, that much was true. She wanted Kevin. She wanted him to be home right now so he could pick her up and carry her off to his bedroom where they would spend the majority of their weekend.

Laura laughed in spite of herself at the absurdity of how she was acting like a seventeen year old hormonal teenager and not a fifty-four year old woman with grandchildren. She checked her phone one more time and sighed in a mixture of relief and annoyance at herself for being so silly. She must have missed hearing it ring when she was in the bathroom getting herself ready but here it was, a missed call from Kevin time-stamped less than ten minutes ago.

But when she impulsively decided to look at the missed call a little closer and she clicked on the button to show her the duration of the call because for the first time that she could remember he hadn't left her a voicemail or sent a follow-up text, she saw that the call lasted only thirty-eight seconds, and, for a reason she couldn't explain to even herself much less to Lulu or Nikolas or Elizabeth later that night, she got scared. Kevin's phone calls to her were _never_ that brief and he always left a message, especially if he wanted to talk to her and he had missed her.

Laura liked to think that she'd learned a lot about Kevin the past three months they had dated, some private or otherwise small quirks that were inherent to him, and one of the many things she figured out about Kevin Collins was that if his cell phone wasn't on the nightstand or the living room table or the kitchen table at home, or on his desk in his office at work, it was in his inside jacket pocket. It was rare that he kept his phone in his back pocket and a pocket-dial was highly unlikely which made the thirty-eight second duration of the call even stranger. Laura called Kevin back and for reasons she couldn't understand found herself hoping that he had disregarded her wishes and was in a long line at a restaurant picking up an order for dinner to surprise her. Eating dinner in bed to get back their energy for a second round of lovemaking sounded good to her the more she thought about it, but the more she thought about it the more she worried about why he wasn't home yet. She wouldn't be able to explain, later, why she knew even then that something was very wrong and why she was pacing back and forth when she listened in incrementally increasing panic to his phone continuing to ring.

Her slowly-increasing panic switched to full-blown panic when four rings turned to seven and he still hadn't answered his phone. Kevin always, always answered her calls if he wasn't in the middle of working hours or it wasn't the designated night and time he blocked off to FaceTime with Christina and if he wasn't able to talk he was always courteous enough to send her a text saying that he'd call her back. She didn't think she'd ever heard his phone go beyond four rings before and this was after work-hours, on a night when he knew she would be here. A night that was supposed to be special for both of them. Laura was two seconds away from hanging up and blast-calling him again, clinging-girlfriend stereotype be damned, when she finally, finally, heard the click that meant Kevin had answered the phone.

He said hello but he didn't sound like Kevin. His soft hello sounded weak and like it was taking every last molecule of energy he had to say the word. "Kevin, hey, honey, are you okay?" she murmured. "You called me a couple of minutes ago and it's getting late. I was getting worried because you said you'd be home around five and it's -"

Kevin's response took a long time to come, and when she heard that same low and weak and soft voice, and heard him grunting and coughing, she immediately stopped talking and her hand gripped the phone a little tighter. "L-Laura." He said her name in something like a mangled grunt, a low, keening sound that made her blood run cold when she heard it. "Hurt."

"You're hurt? Kevin, where are you? What happened, where are you hurt? Are you still at work or are you driving? You didn't get in a car accident, did you? Tell me where you are and I'll come and get you. I'll be there as soon as I can, I promise, just let me get my purse and lock up your house." The fast and furious questions came flying out of her mouth while she raced to the front door to get her purse and Kevin's spare key that he had given her before she remembered that she didn't have a car, and it took her a few more precious seconds to realize that Kevin had only said one word besides a shaky utterance of her name, the word _hurt_ , and it sounded like it was hard for him to say that, so he wouldn't be able to answer rapid-fire questions, especially if they were open-ended. Laura put her hand on the edge of the island to steady herself and somehow managed to seat herself in one of the chairs. "Kevin, I'm here," she whispered with a hell of a lot more confidence and calmness than she felt. "I'm here. What hurts?"

Laura had worked in a hospital long enough and been in hospitals enough to know that she didn't like it at all that it took her boyfriend at least thirty seconds (she counted) to answer the simple question and she especially didn't like the fact that even when he answered the question it sounded like every breath was a struggle. "H-head," Kevin grunted. "Head hurts."

"Your head hurts?" she repeated. She also knew enough to know there could be many different reasons for why his head hurt and most of them weren't good. She saw Kevin's laptop on the living room table and wondered in horror if fifty-six was too young for a stroke. "Why does your head hurt?"

On the other end of the phone line, Kevin had to admit to himself that he was scared to hear himself breathe because with each breath he could feel his cracked ribs moving, and he was starting to cough up blood. He didn't want to admit either of those things to Laura, though. "I - hit," he said, finally. It took him a few tries to get that word out. "Th-there...was...a bat."

"Someone hit you?" Laura sank further into the seat. Kevin's cough seemed to be getting more pronounced - and worse. "Kevin, someone _hurt_ you? Where are you?"

"Head hurts."

Laura couldn't help herself: she held the phone away from her for a second so he wouldn't be able to hear the whimpering sound she made and wouldn't be able to tell that she was almost going to cry. She'd already asked him that and he already told her that his head hurt. "Yes, honey, I know your head hurts," she whispered soothingly. "Can you tell me where you are? Are you still at work?"

"Y-yeah," she heard him croak. Whatever else he had done must have been horribly painful or made his head wound even worse because he had barely gotten out the word when he grunted again, low and continuously. " 'm a work."

If she wasn't sure with her earlier questions Laura was sure now that basic questions were what was going to work best - something Kevin would answer with a yes or a no and that was all. Kevin didn't sound like he was in any shape to do anything more than that. "Are you in your office, Kevin?"

"Yeah." His weak voice came through the phone line nothing more than a barely-there whisper. "N-no. 'm not. P - parking g-garage. 'two guys." She heard him start to cough again when he said his last few words and didn't even try to stop the tears that streaked down her cheeks when his coughing became louder and more like it was hurting him with every breath to talk to her even that little amount. " 'm sorry." He coughed again, so loud that Laura could hear it through the phone how each breath of his came at an immeasurable cost. " 'm sorry, L-Laura."

Laura reached for the nearest object on the counter within reach and held it in her free hand just so she'd have something else to feel besides the elephant that was sitting on her heart and the three words she wanted so badly to say if she thought he'd be able to understand her and comprehend what she was saying. "You will not apologize for anything, Kevin Collins, do you hear me? _You will not._ You did great, you told me where you were so now I know where you are and I can call Monica and Liz to go looking for you. You did great telling me what I needed to know, don't talk anymore and just rest for awhile, okay? Focus on my voice while I talk to you, do you think you can do that?"

"Yeah," was his only response. Which brought upon yet another fit of deep, hacking coughs. " 'm bleeding a lot."

Laura blinked back even more tears. "I'm sure you are if you got jumped by two guys and got hit in the back of the head. Don't worry, they'll clean you up and fix you up and you'll be good as new in a few hours. I'll be at the hospital as soon as I can to see you. You're going to be just fine, Kevin, honey, I promise you."

"They - stabbed me. Hurts."

The cold metal of Kevin's house keys dug into her skin when she clutched them between her fingers but she barely noticed, and she had to take a sharp intake of breath to steady herself. Kevin was hurt and alone and scared and bleeding an awful lot, if he had been hit in the head and stabbed. And God knows what else had happened to him if he'd been jumped in a parking lot by two guys. He didn't need to be able to hear it in her voice that she was scared, too. "Monica and Elizabeth will fix that, too, once they find you," she whispered softly. "You just rest now and stay here with me. Don't you dare close your eyes and go to sleep. Stay here with me, please, Kevin, please."

His voice sounded groggy now and like it was coming from underwater, somewhere far away. " 'm tired, Laura. Hurts."

"You stay here with me, Kevin Collins, you do not fall asleep, do you understand me? I am going to call the hospital and tell them to check the parking garage to look for you. They'll find you and I will stay right here with you until they do. You don't have to be strong without me anymore, okay?"

Laura didn't know what she said on the phone or who she spoke to or but she used Kevin's house phone to dial the main number for General Hospital and somehow made herself clear that they had a critically injured employee on level five of the parking garage they needed to find immediately. Then she went right back to Kevin.

"N-no!" On his side of the phone line, Kevin was gasping for every breath and coughing up significant amounts of blood every time he talked more than one word at a time, but he didn't want Laura to hang up. He wasn't sure anymore that he would make it for however long it took them to find him. "Please…'tay here...don' - me."

Kevin's tone was sluggish and his words mushy and garbled but that only made Laura grip the phone even tighter and opened up a fresh floodgate of tears. "No, oh, Kevin, no, honey, I'm not leaving you, I'm not hanging up. I'm right here. I'm right here with you. Focus on my voice, try and do that, please. They're looking for you. I'm here, I'm not leaving you by yourself. Hang on for a few more minutes, okay?"

She waited with bated breath for what seemed like an eternity listening to Kevin's wheezing breathing and his intermittent coughing. Kevin wasn't talking to her anymore.

Laura thought she'd fall to the floor in elation and relief when she heard voices in the background - Monica Quartermaine yelling at someone to get him on a gurney carefully and Elizabeth's terrified-sounding 'Dr. Collins!' She heard rumbling in the background and a hurried 'We've got him, Laura' from Elizabeth once she picked up the phone.

"Can I tell him something before you take him?" Laura whimpered into the phone and held the device in her hand even tighter as if the phone would be able to tether her to Kevin and she would be able to telekinetically pass some of her strength to him. "Please?"

But they had already taken him and the flat dial tone was the only thing she heard now. Laura threw the phone across the room and clumsily wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Laura didn't remember calling Lulu but it wasn't five minutes after she had left Kevin in the trust of Monica, Elizabeth and the rest of the staff of General Hospital that she heard police sirens in the distance and soon after there was a hurried knock at the apartment door. Laura opened the door to her daughter telling her to come with her, she had Nathan with her and they would give her an express-ride to the hospital.

* * *

Laura Spencer was well acquainted with terror, unfortunately - when Luke raped her at the Campus Disco, those first couple of months after Stavros Cassadine had kidnapped her and forced her to bear his child, when Helena Cassadine had told her Luke was dead and she resigned herself to being held captive on that island, when saving her toddler daughter's life meant seeking out her firstborn son for a blood transfusion and hurting her marriage in the process, when she spent most of Lulu's teenagehood in and out of psychiatric institutions -, she knew what it was like to be afraid of her future.

Because in all of those examples, her future and her happiness was controlled by someone else, not herself. And now Kevin's health wasn't in Laura's control, either, and she couldn't think of anything in her previous experiences that would have prepared her for this.

The ride in the police car from Kevin's apartment to the front doors of General Hospital seemed to happen while Laura was on autopilot, she didn't remember it at all. What she did remember was how Elizabeth's terrified scream echoed over and over again in her mind and her mind kept forming theories, each more terrifying than the last, about the state of Kevin's injuries to elicit that type of scream.

The part of her brain that still functioned at a non terrified-with-emotion level had known that by the time she and Lulu got to the hospital Kevin would either be in an observation room or in surgery and she wouldn't be able to see him, but the second Laura got off the elevator of the emergency room floor she went charging for the nurses' station. "Kevin Collins, is he in surgery? How badly is he hurt?"

Laura didn't immediately recognize the nurse at the front desk, which surprised her. Considering she'd visited Kevin at the hospital enough times in the last two months to be on a casual-acquaintance basis with most of the nurses on staff and of course Maxie's video had done its rounds all over the hospital more than once. "And you are?"

"Laura Spencer, I'm -"

" - she's his girlfriend and she's the one that told me to call this hospital so your staff could go out to the parking lot and find your employee before he bled out!" Lulu interrupted her mother. She pounded on the desk inches away from where the nurse was signing off on some charts. "Not only is she his girlfriend, but she loves him very much. I suggest you tell the three of us where Kevin Collins is immediately, unless you want my mother to convince him to sue this hospital because he was attacked on hospital property."

Nikolas put a comforting hand on his sister's shoulder. "Stand down, Lu," he muttered under his breath. "Mom's upset as it is without your histrionics adding to it." He flashed his most charming smile at the unfamiliar nurse and took a closer look at her name tag. "Veronica, is it? Pretty name for a beautiful woman. All we want to know is if Kevin Collins is in surgery and what his immediate prognosis looks like. If Elizabeth Webber isn't busy at the moment, we'd like to speak to her as well." He wrapped his other hand around his mother's. "Elizabeth called me. And then Lulu called me," he murmured by way of explanation, but Laura didn't care. She was just grateful they were both there with her, she couldn't do this alone right now.

The nurse picked up another chart and didn't look impressed with Nikolas. "This is an emergency room with multiple critical patients, sir, our nurses are busy all the time. And unless you are family I'm not going to be able to tell you about whether any specific patient is in surgery."

Lulu opened her mouth right away to protest some more and this time she would invoke Tracy Quartermaine's name as a board member of this hospital, but as soon as she saw Elizabeth Webber coming down the hall she shrugged Nikolas' hand away from her shoulder and decided to go straight to the source.

Lulu spoke in hushed tones to Elizabeth for a few minutes, or at least something Lulu thought passed for hushed tones, and after Elizabeth set down her current chart Lulu led the nurse to the waiting room. Nikolas had already taken Laura to the section of the floor that doubled as a waiting area and already was sitting beside her in the always-uncomfortable hospital chairs and Lulu quickly squeezed past Elizabeth to slide into the chair on the other side of her mother. Nikolas and Lulu held to each of Laura's hands and Nikolas glanced at Elizabeth with a guarded, you-better-not-upset-my-mother look on his face. Elizabeth nodded at Nikolas and took a seat on the edge of the table in front of Laura.

"Dr. Collins…" One look at Laura's tear-streaked face and Elizabeth quickly amended how she referred to the patient. "Kevin is in surgery, Laura, and we're looking at a best case scenario that he will be in surgery for the next three to four hours. He suffered multiple stab wounds to his stomach, three to his chest and one to the side of his neck. The one to the side of his neck was superficial, thankfully, and that's a good thing because the intent of whoever attacked him was to hurt him, not to kill him. The hit to the back of the head and the kick to the side of the head both concern us and we're monitoring his brain function closely. His broken ankle is the least of our worries, considering everything else, but - " Elizabeth stopped abruptly when Nikolas meaningfully shook his head no at her over Laura's head. Elizabeth softened her tone and reached for Laura's hand. Lulu glanced at Nikolas but dropped her mama's hand and allowed her to hold Elizabeth's.

"Laura," Elizabeth said firmly. "I need to make sure that you know that you saved Kevin's life. You did everything right. He's got very serious injuries but ultimately he's going to be fine, and that's because of you. I also wanted to make sure you knew that he knows you're here. He regained consciousness for a few minutes while we were taking him into the OR. I told him that you were here and that you were waiting for him, and you'd be there after he got out of surgery, and he squeezed my hand." Elizabeth patted Laura's hand and handed her a tissue from the box Lulu had helpfully swiped from the nurses' station. "Kevin knows you're here, Laura," she murmured softly. "He went under anesthesia knowing his girlfriend was here waiting for him."

Laura shredded the kleenex in between her fingers just to give herself something to do. "Thanks," she whispered. "Thank you for telling me that. I'm - I'm glad he knows I'm here. I'll be here - as long as it takes." Elizabeth quickly handed her a new tissue for her to blow her nose, and another to wipe her eyes. "Not that I don't appreciate you talking to me, but I'd rather you be in that operating room with him."

Elizabeth nodded at Nikolas and Lulu and gave Laura a sad little smile as both Nikolas and Lulu immediately went back to doing whatever it was they could to comfort their mother. "If I can't come back, I'll send someone to talk to you at the first available opportunity. If it's not me, it will be someone that knows you." She stood from the table and walked away.

Lulu tracked Elizabeth's movements with her eyes and quietly whispered to her mom that she wanted to go call Dante and tell him where she was. (She didn't think it necessary to tell her mom that Dante or other officers from the PCPD were probably already spread out in the parking garage marking off the scene and collecting evidence). Nikolas stayed focused on his mother and didn't allow her to watch as Lulu quickly started to follow Elizabeth.

Lulu jogged and caught up to Elizabeth within seconds. "Elizabeth, can we talk for a second?" She started to talk without even waiting for the nurse to respond, glancing back for half a second to where Nikolas sat with their mother. "I appreciate you promising my mother updates on Kevin's condition, but please, will you make sure Nikolas or I are with her when you or your colleagues talk to her? I don't know how badly Kevin is hurt and we don't want her to be alone."

Elizabeth forced a smile onto her face. Lulu's heart was in the right place but Laura wouldn't appreciate being placated like this if she knew Lulu was running interference on something as critical as Kevin's health. "I care about your mother as much as you, Nikolas and Lucky do," she said matter-of-factly. "Kevin was brutally attacked tonight and to be frank, it's miraculous he survived all of his stab wounds and blood loss long enough to make it to surgery. I'm not going to sugarcoat that for your mom and I'm not going to pick and choose what I tell her."

"I wasn't asking you to sugarcoat anything, Elizabeth, I was just asking…"

Elizabeth was already walking down the hall and away from Lulu. "I have other patients I need to check on before I can go back to Kevin. But someone will be out to talk to Laura and the two of you as soon as we're at a place where we know anything more, I promise you that."

The next time they saw Elizabeth wasn't until four hours later.

Lulu had indeed finally spoken to Dante who, like she had first thought, was down in the parking garage with Detective West and other officers from the PCPD attempting to make sense of the scene and collect whatever evidence they could. On orders from Commissioner Ashford, Dante and Nathan had spoken to Laura for ten minutes to find out what if anything she knew about Kevin's attack or who if anyone might want to hurt him, but cut the interview short because they were obviously upsetting her, plus Lulu was glaring at Dante in a way that meant if he valued sleeping in their bed and not the couch he better wrap this up. Nikolas had long since made his own phone call to check on Spencer and see to it that he was fine at his friend's house for the time being. He kept his explanation to Spencer short, saying only that Grandmother's friend was hurt and they had to check on him.

Laura hardly knew what to do with herself for all of that time. She wasn't the most patient person to begin with and it had been years since she had been in this position, to have to wait in a hospital for news about someone she cared about. It wasn't even until somewhere between the first and second hour of waiting that Laura realized she had somehow brought with her to the hospital the green nightshirt she wore last night, the shirt Kevin had let her wear and made his eyes go so dark and wanting when he saw her in that shirt and nothing else, and that realization made the cold hand that had been squeezing her heart ever since she heard Kevin's weak and completely-unlike-him voice telling her he was hurt clamp down on her heart even tighter. Tonight was supposed to have been the night she and Kevin made love for the first time but here she was in the waiting room of GH waiting for word on if he lived or died.

It wasn't _fair._ None of this was fair. This was supposed to have been **their** night, damnit. And then she felt horribly guilty not to mention like the world's worst girlfriend for being disappointed they hadn't been able to have sex that night when Kevin had been stabbed and smashed in the head and had been in surgery for hours.

As luck would have had it, Laura was coming back from the restroom when she saw Elizabeth talking to Lulu and Nikolas so she quickly dropped her half-drunken plastic cup of hospital coffee in the nearest trash can and hurried back. If Elizabeth was here that must mean she had some updates about Kevin.

The three of them were clearly in the middle of a hushed conversation and didn't notice Laura at first. " - would you rather I have told her the truth, that Kevin was unconscious when we found him and never regained consciousness? He was hit in the back of the head, kicked in the side of the head at close distance and the stab wound to his chest was millimeters from his heart. Him not regaining consciousness wasn't a surprise, it's a miracle he was coherent for as long as he was. Excuse me for wanting to give your mother some hope." Elizabeth lowered her voice even more. "It's better for Kevin that Laura think he was thinking about her. Sometimes the power of positive thinking does more for patients than medicine ever could."

Laura cleared her throat before Elizabeth could say more and dig her grave even further. "If you are out here talking to Nikolas and Lulu about how you lied to me that Kevin woke up, and he in fact never regained consciousness after I hung up the phone with him, that must mean Kevin is out of surgery. Where is he? How is he? Don't lie to me this time, please."

Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and braced herself to be the bearer of bad news. Which wouldn't be pleasant considering Laura was ticked off at her now, for understandable reasons. "He's still in surgery, I just was coming out here to give you an update. There were unforeseen circumstances and some complications that we're - "

"Tell me about them," Laura interrupted. "Tell me what's happening to him." She saw Elizabeth's eyes shift towards Nikolas and stepped forward. "No. You don't look at my son or my daughter for permission, you look at me. Tell. Me. About. Kevin."

Elizabeth nodded and indicated to the chairs for her to sit, but Laura understood well by now what sitting represented and calmly and firmly told Elizabeth that she would stand, thank you very much, and she wanted to know about Kevin right now and didn't appreciate Elizabeth or her children working together to withhold information from her.

Elizabeth sighed and held a chart - Kevin's chart - to her chest. She knew his injuries, prognosis, and step-by-step treatment plan with contingencies for any setback in his recovery by heart and Laura looked like she very much wanted to set her on fire if she didn't start saying words immediately. "There were complications during the first part of the surgery. His stomach acid levels were high enough that it already started to perforate the lining of his gut and flood into his abdominal cavity. We had to re-inflate his right lung that collapsed. The doctors are doing everything they can, Laura, please trust me. And Kevin's fighting, believe you me, I know he's fighting to come back. So far, despite all of his injuries, he's been very lucky."

Laura swallowed and blinked and crossed her arms in what Lulu and Lucky still always referred to as her self-preservation stance. "He's been lucky," she echoed dully, a fresh batch of tears pooling in her eyes. Lulu rested her chin on her shoulder and Laura almost jumped in surprise, honestly having forgotten Lulu and Nikolas were still there. "I don't think Kevin would call any of this him being lucky, Elizabeth."

"He is, Laura. Nine stab wounds and none of them hit any major arteries or blood vessels. The most severe stab wound to his chest missed the pericardial sac by a couple of millimeters, if that."

Laura swallowed again at the thought of how small a millimeter really was and how Kevin could have died without ever making it inside to the hospital if even one of the stab wounds had punctured him differently. "Should - should Lucy be here?" she heard herself whisper. "Should someone tell her what happened? I, um, Kevin and I have only been together for three months, it - it wouldn't be my place to tell Christina about this." She wiped clumsily at her eyes and all of a sudden let out a sharp, on-the-edge-of-hysterical laugh. "No, I can't even do that. I don't think I even know Lucy's phone number. For the love of God!"

Lulu and Nikolas exchanged a glance over their mother's head and Lulu lifted her chin from her mom's shoulder and squeezed her hand. "Let me go get you another cup of coffee, mom, you hardly drank the first one," she murmured. "You haven't eaten tonight either, do you want something from the vending machine?"

Laura shook her head. "The last thing I need is to be more caffeinated, honey. And I'm not hungry."

She pretended not to notice Lulu and Nikolas exchange another longer and more meaningful look. The way they seemed to be having an entire conversation about her without talking out loud. "Tea, then," Lulu offered. "I'm not talking about a three course meal here, mama, just something from the vending machine. You won't be able to do anything to help Kevin's recovery if you pass out because you haven't eaten in -"

"It's been five hours, Lulu," Laura interjected, an edge of sharpness in her voice when she talked to either of her children for the first time since they'd gotten here. "I will not starve in five hours. And this is a hospital, they don't have tea."

"The doctor's lounge has tea. Elizabeth will let me in and I'll make you some. Won't you, Elizabeth?" Elizabeth hesitated and nodded when Lulu nudged her in the ribs. "Then I will go down to the cafeteria and get you a sandwich and a big bag of chips and Nikolas and I are going to sit here and watch you until you eat at least half."

"If you want to," Laura shrugged. Lulu went back to the chairs to retrieve her purse and headed for the elevators to go to the cafeteria, murmuring to Nik to keep an eye on mom and get Elizabeth to make mom some tea. Nikolas half-heartedly hit his sister on the shoulder for the second request but agreed. Lulu sounded like she was going to be more than okay with staying the entire night with mom at the hospital if that was what it took and so he could go back to Wyndemere once Lulu returned from the cafeteria. Lulu turned back at the sound of her mother's voice. "Turkey, please," she said quietly. "I want a turkey sandwich on rye bread with no mayo and extra mustard."

Elizabeth purposefully scurried off to the direction of the doctor's lounge to make Laura some tea so she wouldn't have to meet Laura's gaze and admit to her that she knew exactly why Laura had ordered what she had ordered - that turkey on rye with no mayo and extra mustard was Kevin's go-to sandwich.

Elizabeth was back in five minutes with the tea, even going as far as to use a napkin as a makeshift coaster, and she and Nikolas got Laura settled back into the waiting room chairs. She offered the two of them as well as Lulu when she got back with the food an on-call room to have a little degree of privacy or they could go sit in the doctor's lounge, but Laura shook her head to both. If a doctor or nurse that wasn't Elizabeth came out with updates on Kevin she wanted that person to be able to find her quickly.

Laura took a tiny sip of the tea at Nikolas' insistence and mostly so he and Lulu would stop their dual-hovering over her, and was pleasantly surprised at how good she found it. Maybe she really was thirsty. Hungry, too. She set her tea back down on the table and looked at Elizabeth. "Thank you for continuing to update me about Kevin," she murmured. "I feel like you could get in trouble for everything that you've told me. I'm not - I'm not his family."

If Lulu had been there she would have been the only one to notice Laura's voice almost crack when she admitted that she wasn't his family and had no legal right to know anything about his care.

"If by that you mean you don't have his ring on your finger or his last name that's just a matter of time." Elizabeth's voice softened. "Maybe you aren't his family in that sense, but everyone in this hospital knows how important you are to him. Your daughter's friend's little video saw to that." Laura's cheeks flushed with color and her mouth curved upward into a tiny smile. It wasn't quite a laugh but it was close. Elizabeth scooted backwards as Lulu returned all of a sudden with two turkey sandwiches and a large bag of chips and handed one to her mother and told her they could share the chips. Elizabeth waited for Lulu to sit down and reached across the table to pat Laura's hand. "Laura, Kevin would want you to know everything about his care. I know that for a fact. He cares about you very much and I also know it for a fact that you are the first face he'll want to see when he wakes up."

Laura took the sandwich that Lulu had unwrapped for her and took a bite. It was cold and wasn't the best-tasting sandwich in the first place but if it was Kevin's favorite she would eat it. "You said there were complications."

"I said there were complications but the doctors were getting it all under control, and he should be out of surgery in a few hours. When he gets out of surgery he's going to be taken to intensive care and you'll be able to see him when the nurses up there say he's allowed a visitor. I'll clear it with the nurses on the floor to see that you're allowed in without trouble, and you might even be able to stay the night if you wanted."

Lulu hesitated the slightest bit at that particular suggestion of Elizabeth's but nodded encouragingly at her mother.

Elizabeth waited respectfully until Laura's attention was back on her before she continued. "I better get back. We think his surgery should be two more hours but that's best case scenario and I'll come back to let you know if anything changes. You are more than welcome to stay down here or I can have Felix take you to the intensive care floor and let you get acclimated to that floor because that's where Kevin ultimately will be."

"But right now Kevin is still on this floor," Laura murmured. "I want to be on whatever floor he's on."

Elizabeth nodded even though she already had a feeling that was what Laura would have said. That wherever Kevin was was where Laura wanted to be, even if he was unconscious on an operating table and didn't know she was there. Kevin and Laura might have only been dating for three months, but clearly whatever had brought them together had started so much earlier than their first date. She might just win her bet after all.

"And you still didn't tell me what to do about Lucy and Christina," Laura continued, setting her sandwich back down and picking at one of the stray pieces of turkey that had escaped its bread. She turned to Lulu and sniffled and Lulu was taken aback at the unchecked emotion in her mother's eyes, the emotion that had been there all night and was permanently on the edge of spilling over. "Kevin and Lucy...don't have the best relationship anymore, haven't since even before their divorce, really, but - she's still his ex-wife and his daughter's mother. If I were in her shoes I'd want to know."

Lulu's gaze shifted to the left of her mother. Laura was seriously getting tired of Lulu and Nikolas having silent conversations about her when she was right there and still perfectly sane. "That would probably be your call, mama," Lulu said hesitantly, quietly. "You know Kevin and his relationship with Lucy better than we do. If their divorce wasn't a good one and they don't talk anymore, then - "

"I mean, no matter the problems I had with your father, Lulu, I'd want to know if he was hurt and on the verge of death, if for no other reason then you and your brother could say goodbye to him."

"Now, **my** father on the other hand..." Nikolas interjected.

Laura wiped her mouth with a napkin and grinned. "I'm sorry, Nikolas, but your father could have died a painful death alone in a rat-infested bedroom for all I care. You are better off without him." It was the first time she'd laughed all night.

Nikolas subtly reached for his phone and typed a quick, short message to Lulu when their mom wasn't looking. _You're good to stay with her, right?_ Lulu looked at him and nodded and Nikolas stood up from his chair. "I'm going to go home, Mother, but call me if you need me or if anything changes with Kevin. There's some emergency business I need to attend to. If I don't see you at Wyndemere tonight I'll see you in the morning." He kissed Laura on the cheek and bent down to give her a hug, holding her for a few seconds more than was usual to try and reassure her that everything would work out the way it was supposed to and Kevin would make it through his surgery. He waved to both Elizabeth and Lulu and headed for the elevators.

Nikolas waited until he was safe behind the closed door of the elevator before he looked at his phone again and pulled up a most-recent text from Lulu. _See what you can find out from Dante. If someone hurt Kevin on purpose, for Mom's sake we need to find out who attacked him._ Nikolas pushed the button for the parking garage.

Dante was family, a good guy. Good enough for his little sister, at least. Dante would tell him what the PCPD had learned so far. And if he wouldn't, what good was the Cassadine name if Nikolas couldn't use it to get information he wanted?

The next two and a half hours were torture for Laura, she could have sworn the second-hand on the clock took forever to change from one minute to the next. At some point Lulu disappeared into the doctor's lounge and returned with a deck of cards and had made quick work of dealing out an arrangement of solitaire for her mom, ordering her to play. Laura tried to concentrate on the cards and lasted for an entire ten minutes, until she found herself staring at the upturned cards already in play and couldn't for the life of her remember what was the next card in order that was allowed to be played on a red six.

Laura forced herself to finish all of the turkey sandwich. It was Kevin's favorite and he would be so disappointed in her if she didn't eat both halves. She found herself blinking back tears when Lulu wasn't looking and wished more than anything that Kevin was awake so she could split the damn sandwich with him. The chips were actually ones she liked, but she would have let him have the entire bag without question if he would get out of surgery soon and wake up fine. She'd go back to the vending machine and buy him as many as he wanted.

Every ten minutes Laura would pick up her phone and write an important but purposefully vague text for Christina, delete everything she had written, start over again with new ways of telling her that her dad was hurt, then delete it all. She'd put her phone back in her purse and wait for the next ten minutes, where she'd repeat the same process. It kept her sane, weirdly enough, being able to focus on Kevin's daughter instead of herself helped.

She didn't have the authority to be the one to tell Christina her father had been attacked. Partly because she knew Kevin and knew he wouldn't want Christina to be worried and jump on the first flight out of Paris to New York, but also because Kevin's daughter had a perfectly suitable mother. Perfectly suitable hadn't been the words Lucy had used. Lucy had cornered Laura in the hospital one morning when she'd come to visit Kevin and had been _very_ clear that **she** was Christina's mother and Laura wasn't to interfere or else she'd be forced to speak to Kevin some more - in person. Which she was allowed to do any time she pleased and Laura couldn't say diddly-squat about it. Because she was his ex-wife and his child's mother. Laura hadn't been entirely proud of the way she'd reacted, how she'd pushed not-entirely-accidentally past Lucy and snapped that whatever type of relationship Kevin saw fit for her and Christina to have was the type of relationship they would have, and she would abide by his parameters until told differently or until she and Kevin became more serious, whichever came first. Lucy didn't scare her.

But she couldn't lie, she had been a little bit proud of the way Lucy's eyes flickered and dimmed ever so slightly at the idea of Laura and Kevin getting serious.

Lulu finished the discarded solitaire game, Laura shooting her daughter a happy but clearly distracted smile when she won, and Lulu had just started to deal out the cards in a new game that both of them could play when Elizabeth appeared.

Lulu was so surprised at the nurse's sudden presence that she dropped a quarter of the cards on the floor and didn't move to pick them up. Laura didn't tell her to. She immediately shoved her phone back in her purse and forgot all about worrying about Christina and Lucy. "Elizabeth," Laura said urgently. "What's going on?"

Elizabeth was standing in front of both Laura and Lulu and Lulu was the first to notice that for the first time in hours she was smiling. "Kevin made it through surgery and is being transferred to the intensive care unit. We don't expect him to wake up for another hour and the doctors prescribed him a few heavy-duty pain medications so he'll be out of it even when he does regain consciousness - meaning don't attempt any meaningful conversation - but -"

Elizabeth was stopped from saying the rest of her speech when Laura stood up from her chair and wrapped her in a tight hug. The stress of the night, the worry, the confusion, the helplessness, all the emotions she had tried so hard to keep down for the last five-and-a-half hours seemed to come rushing all at once to overwhelm her and Laura fought to control herself and not fall to pieces like a sobbing mess all over her former daughter-in-law. Her own feelings could wait until tomorrow, when Kevin had talked to her and felt more like himself and they both could hear it for themselves from his team of doctors that he would be okay. Then she could go to one of the bathrooms on the intensive care floor and let it all out. But not in front of Kevin and not until she knew for a medical fact he had beaten all of his injuries. Not a minute before.

It was all about Kevin right now, would be for the foreseeable future until she was holding his hand and able to look into his brown eyes and tell him how much she loved him. He'd say it back. And then she could cry.


	11. Chapter 11

The elevator ride to the intensive care unit on the sixth floor lasted two minutes at most but Lulu was sure that those two minutes felt like an eternity to her mother. Lulu knew how _she_ would be feeling if Dante was hurt this way. Not that her mother and Kevin were in any way comparable to her marriage to Dante, but Lulu knew that it was time to admit to herself that her mom cared about Kevin a lot. She supposed it was similar to how she had cared about Dillon way back when they'd dated when they were stupid teenagers trying to grow up much too fast, or Logan or even Johnny. She supposed she'd be a wreck if any of them had been hurt. But that was different. Her affair with Dillon (while he'd been married to Maxie's sister, go figure how life worked out sometimes) and even her - thing with Johnny didn't compare to her mom's romantic life. Such as it was. Her mom had only been dating Kevin for three months, if her mom's words were to be believed, which Lulu thought was debatable. They couldn't possibly be serious so soon. There wasn't any way could her mom could be in love with Kevin even half as much as she loved Dante. Because if there was then that meant Lulu had missed out on the start of her mom falling in love again for the first time in years and the thought that she had missed that for no reason but her pride made her unbelievably ashamed and sad.

Her mom's hand squeezing hers and her audible sniffles when they got off the elevator and after speaking to one of the front desk nurses Elizabeth pressed a four-digit code to be allowed access to the intensive care unit got Lulu's immediate attention. So she did love Kevin. Question answered.

Lulu slipped an arm around her mother's waist and half-listened to Elizabeth as the nurse explained to the two of them why exactly intensive care was the best place for Kevin to be at this time and how long his doctors expected him to be there. She was on purpose paying more attention to how her mother reacted. Her mom didn't show outward signs of how frightened she was but if the way her mom clutched tighter at her hand at every word Elizabeth said was any indication (to the point it crossed Lulu's mind to be gentle with Dante and not grip his hand so tight when she was in labor), Lulu knew her mom was behaving how Spencer women did, pretending to be strong when they weren't. Elizabeth punched a different four-digit code that took them through another set of double-doors that took them closer to Kevin and now she was talking about Kevin being on a intravenous drug drip to ward off infection and him having to be in a cast for four to six weeks because of a severe broken bone in his lower right leg. Lulu shook her head and vowed to pay better attention. She didn't know if her mom was listening to any of this.

Elizabeth kept talking and Lulu wasn't sure of the rest but even still she was sure it couldn't have been any better than what she **had** heard because her mom looked like she was mere seconds away from running to the nearest open waste receptacle and throwing up. The three of them walked down the hallway and took a right, doing that same thing again at the end of a second hallway to end up walking past three doors. Elizabeth stopped at the door to do an identification check and nodded in self-satisfaction, a look that did absolutely nothing to appease Lulu's mind about what she was sending her mother into even though she would be right there with her, and gave her a little push forward. Lulu put her hands on her mother's shoulders to stall for a moment so they could both get their bearings.

"Mom?" she murmured quietly and Laura glanced up as if she hadn't heard her and had actually forgotten she was there. "Mom, do you want me to stay with you in here? Elizabeth said it might be awhile until Kevin wakes up. Until I'll leave when he does wake up and let the two of you have some time alone, and then I'll take you back to my house so you can get some sleep. I'll bring you back in the morning whatever time you want. Is that allowed?" She directed the last question to Elizabeth but didn't give her a chance to respond. "I don't care if it is or it isn't allowed, I'm staying with my mom. Tracy Quartermaine is on the board of this hospital. You are more than welcome to take it up with her if there's any issue."

Laura's voice interrupted Lulu invoking Tracy Quartermaine's name to get her way and the way she answered her daughter sounded detached and mechanical. Like she was struggling with everything she had inside of her to hold it all together in front of the hospital staff and her daughter, even if that hospital staff was her former daughter-in-law, and that scared Lulu even more than anything Elizabeth might have tried to prepare them for earlier about Kevin would look. "I'm...not going back to your house with you tonight, Lulu, how could you even think that?" This was why Nikolas had been so desperate that one of them stay with her at all times, Lulu thought to herself with a sudden clarity that sickened her. So she didn't run herself down to the ground and make herself sick - or worse. Lulu didn't know if she could handle the thought of having to call Lucky and tell him that mom was sick, again, and that he needed to come back home. "I'm going to stay with Kevin as long as he needs me. Elizabeth said she can make that happen and Kevin would do the same for me if I was the one - hurt."

Her mom blinked rapidly a few times and Lulu pressed a gentle and reassuring kiss to her shoulder, taking her mom's hand in hers and squeezing tight. "I should have known better, I'm sorry. Elizabeth said you could go in, there's a chair right up there by him, see, you can hold his hand. I'll sit on that remarkably comfortable-looking plastic chair over in the corner."

Laura didn't react to the so-horrible-it-should-have-made-her-smile joke. "I know being in the same room with Kevin is the last place you'd ever want to be. You should go home and be with your son and your husband. That's your place, Lulu. My place is here with Kevin."

Lulu blinked but she didn't cry. That wasn't her place, either. "And right now my place is with you," she said in a tone that held no room for discussions or argument. "Rocco is with Elizabeth's boys, he's fine. Dante is at the station and he will be for awhile. They taped off the garage as a crime scene and bagged all of Kevin's property as evidence and the last I talked to him one of the deputies had found Kevin's car and they were dusting everything for prints." Lulu immediately wanted to kick herself for describing exactly to her mother how the police department from minute one of arriving on the scene treated Kevin's attack as a purposeful and criminal act. No doubt her mother already **knew** that, considering Kevin had been brutally stabbed nine times and kicked as well as hit in the head, but she didn't need to know police procedure specifics. Not right now. "Never mind, mom. Forget I said anything. Just go sit with Kevin."

Lulu watched her mother carefully as they walked into the room for any sign of her not being able to hold it together when she saw Kevin for the first time. Elizabeth had known what she was talking about. From the knee down Kevin's right leg was completely enclosed in a cast, and there were bruises starting at the side of his eye and spreading down his cheek to the side of his face so spectacular that it made Lulu wince. She didn't even want to imagine how badly that had hurt. Nor did she want to imagine how much pain he must have been in when he was conscious and being stabbed relentlessly.

And even while being stabbed and hurt so badly his first thought was for her mother. Lulu didn't know what to think or how to feel about that.

Lulu sat in the corner chair at the farthest side of the room exactly like she promised she would do and for the next forty-five minutes she flipped through a magazine she had borrowed from Elizabeth from the nurses' lounge (Borrowed sounded so much better than stolen, but in all honesty her former stepmother was a board member of this hospital and even if she did plan on taking the magazine with her it was six months past being a current issue, it wasn't a great loss) and kept up a conversation with Dante via text wondering if the PCPD had discovered anything yet and what that meant for Kevin's case.

Her mom had moved the chair as close to the hospital bed and to Kevin as she could get it so she could hold his hand as soon as they had entered the room, and hadn't moved since. Lulu instinctively knew better than to interrupt.

"...I love you. I really love you." The magazine she wasn't even reading slipped out of Lulu's hands and fell to the floor and her phone fell to her lap when she heard for the first time in awhile her mom's quiet, achingly sad, despondent voice. It was so quiet and so tender and so emotional Lulu felt as though she was intruding on something intrinsically private, something meant only for her mom and Kevin. But Lulu couldn't turn away. Her mom whispered to Kevin over and over again how much she loved him and how grateful she was that he was alive, how he had made it through the hard part now and she'd be right there with him for the rest of his recovery, and if pressed to give an answer Lulu would have to say that her mom no longer remembered or even cared that she was in the room. Lulu's hand instinctively reached to get her mother a tissue but held back when she saw her mother carefully stroking Kevin's uninjured hand. Her mother didn't need a tissue. What she needed was Kevin to wake up and tell her for himself that he was going to be okay.

"I love you, Kevin Collins." Lulu hadn't heard that soft tone in her mom's voice in many, many years, not in regards to a man. Never had she heard her mother claim to love a man other than her dad. Had she really spent all of her time and energy refusing to acknowledge the importance of Kevin's presence in her mom's life that she missed all of this completely? Lulu promised herself and her mother silently that she wouldn't miss anything else, not one more day. Not if this man in this hospital bed made her mother so happy. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she heard her mom whisper. "I'm sorry I convinced you to take that meeting, I was more than happy to stay home with you but I know how long you had waited to meet with human resources that I didn't want you to pass it up because of me. I love you, Kevin. I love you and all I want right now is for you to wake up and look at me so I can say it to you in person. In public or at least outside of your apartment. _Please._ " She watched silently, sadly, as her mom stood up from her chair and kissed her own fingers before lightly pressing two of them to Kevin's cheek, one of the few parts of him she could find uninjured or free from medical tubes and wires.

Lulu had to get out of there before her guilt started to bubble over, she knew she did. None of this was fair. "Mom," she whispered, and her mom's startled expression combined with the way she half-froze in place and shielded Kevin's body from any other perceived harm proved that she indeed had forgotten Lulu was there, but it didn't upset Lulu like her subconscious had first claimed it would. All it did was make Lulu sad all over again that she for the last three months had every day put her feelings of hurt and abandonment above her mother's happiness, to the extent that Kevin had been a part of her mother's life in a romantic way for a quarter of a year and she hadn't taken even one evening out of her life to have dinner with them or even talk to Kevin for five minutes. The little she knew about her mother and Kevin's relationship she knew from Nikolas and Dante and both of them were reluctant to tell her anything given her well-publicized feelings about her mom dating.

She had a sudden and overwhelming need to hug her mother and apologize for everything, honestly and profusely, but the words caught in her throat for a fantastic reason: she saw Kevin's finger move. "Mom!" she murmured urgently, loud enough to get her attention, nodding towards the bed. "I'm going to go find one of the nurses, okay? Stay with him."

There was something inside Lulu that made her want to stop and look back even though she was already halfway out the door and when she did, she saw Kevin's hand that wasn't taped with an IV needle reaching for the soft fabric of her mom's blouse, and heard his rough voice, slurred with a mix of anesthesia and drugs. "'hey, pretty girl." Lulu hurried the rest of the way out and went in search of a nurse. Her mom was reaching for water for Kevin as soon as he first opened his mouth and didn't acknowledge her leaving.

The best thing about the intensive care unit was that the nurses were always at attention whenever they were called for. She wouldn't think about it until much later how she had only said his name and not what was wrong before the nurses started running towards her and how that must mean Kevin was the most critical patient on the floor, but within minutes she was pushing open the door to Kevin's room again and stopped dead in her tracks at what she saw. Her mom, half-kneeling on Kevin's hospital bed, supporting most of his upper body weight as best she could, pressing his hair away from his face and a bedpan underneath his mouth and his chin as he threw up. Only to repeat the same process seconds later when he threw up again. Kevin started to make horrible retching noises for the third time - third time only since she'd been there, who knew how many times it had been overall - and Lulu blinked back tears of sorrow and shame as she watched as she watched how unbelievably gentle her mom was being with him. The nurse immediately went to Kevin's side and Lulu saw her mom shift into protective mode.

"Give him a minute until he's done!" she heard her mom say sharply and as Lulu came into the room and went around the other side of the bed to switch bedpans or even get a trashcan if they needed it she heard her mom's gentle voice whispering into Kevin's ear, something soft about how she'd raised two children and had five grandchildren and wasn't he lucky that sudden throw-up didn't scare her, and all the while she was running her fingers through his hair.

"It could be his response to the anesthesia that's still working it's way out of his system or an adverse reaction to one or more of the medications we have him on," the nurse was saying. Lulu hadn't heard her mom ask the question but the nurse was speaking directly to her. "But in the meantime we'll try to get him on some anti-nausea medication as soon as possible."

"See that you do. Immediately," Lulu heard herself saying and the surprised but grateful look in her mother's eyes made her supremely glad that she had. "Immediately means now," she snapped when the nurse hadn't yet left the room. "I'm sure leaving your patient in unnecessary distress is _not_ on your list of critical care duties." Lulu rolled her eyes as soon as the nurse hurriedly left the room - she might end up reporting her to Elizabeth if that kind of behavior happened again - and looked sympathetically at Kevin and gained a newfound respect for him when he stayed remarkably compliant while her mom helped him sit up to drink a couple small sips of water and watched him to make sure he drank it successfully without spilling or choking, wiped his mouth with a hand towel from the bathroom, and carefully and slowly helped him to lie back down, slowly to avoid aggravating his stitches. Dante wouldn't have been this complacent if she was treating him like this, Lulu knew. "I'm glad you're alright," she murmured. "For my mom's sake and because you can't be such a bad guy if my mom cares about you so much."

Her mom looked at her with so much surprise that it made Lulu want to apologize for every bad thing she'd ever done to her mother, but the potential for a bonding moment between them was over when Kevin looked at her with eyes full of pain and reached towards her to swat at her hand. Her mom held Kevin's hand tightly in hers and murmured something quietly to him Lulu couldn't hear to keep him from moving or pulling at his stitches and hurting himself. "Ankle, Lesley Lu, your hand is on his cast and you're hurting him!"

Like it was a burning stove, Lulu right away removed her hand from Kevin's casted leg and stammered an apology and that she didn't mean to hurt him, not at all. Kevin barely turned his head to look at her mom and Lulu watched her mom smile, say something else quietly that made him laugh until the laughing made him cough, and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles before she curled her fingers around his. "Be more careful, Lulu," her mom spoke harshly but not-unkindly. "Please."

Lulu managed to stammer out a second apology and took quick steps backwards to sit in her chair again. Twenty minutes later her phone rang and she answered it instantly without caring who it was or that it was two in the morning. It could have been Nikolas or Dante or Elizabeth's grandmother but she was immensely grateful for the interruption no matter who was on the phone. Kevin had thrown up twice more in that short time and it was nothing less than supremely mentally draining to watch up close and personally how careful and gentle her mom was with him every single time. It made her feel so guilty for how she'd treated her mom and Kevin that she could hardly stand to be in the same room as them, but every time Lulu felt the self-pity she had to remind herself that this was all a predicament of her own doing and that she needed to put her mother first if she had any hope of being included in this new phase of her mother's life: this was about how her mom felt, not about how she felt.

Her mom's frantic voice interrupted her before she escaped into the hall. "Get that nurse back in here and tell her to administer an anti-nausea medication that works!"

Lulu flagged down the nearest nurse but made herself scarce and stayed in the hall for the next ten minutes to talk to Dante on the phone and see what she could pry out of him about what the PCPD had learned about Kevin's attack, every so often peering curiously at what little she could see through the gaps in the window blinds. Two nurses were in the room and it hadn't escaped her notice that as soon as the nurses had arrived Kevin reached for her mother's hand and had asked her to stay. She would have been in the way. Lulu frowned and stepped closer to the window, crossing her fingers behind her back that nothing major was wrong, when ten minutes dragged to fifteen and all the way to twenty and the nurses were still in the room. Lulu hung up on Dante in a hurry and lifted her hand to knock on the window when the door to Kevin's room finally opened and the nurses trailed out, but her mom remained inside. The shorter of the nurses held Kevin's chart up high in a poor attempt to hide that she was laughing and Lulu's confusion and worry heightened. "What is going on with my - "

The second nurse pulled her away from the doorway. "The anti-nausea medication should be kicking in soon and we don't anticipate any other problems, but his other medications are kicking in and medication effects everyone differently. He's a little - out of it right now, but don't you worry, your dad's going to be fine."

Lulu's frown deepened. "Out of it? Is he safe?"

"He's very talkative now," the nurse that was laughing only moments before told her, with somewhat of a straight face. "We had a very interesting conversation about how sorry he was that the night before last got fucked up - his exact words - and that it was all his fault because he didn't have condoms. Apparently your mom was - quite eager and he felt bad for having to tell her no. But he assured us, and by us I mean all of us in the room, that as soon as he was out of the hospital he'd go back to the store and get a super-sized box of protection and then go home and he and your mom would get right down to business." The nurse mistook the look on Lulu's face for annoyance at how much he had said. "It happens to a lot of patients, dear, and it might be embarrassing but it's ultimately harmless. Don't be too concerned. He's going to be just fine once it all travels through his system and you and your mom will have a great time reminding your dad of everything he said once he's recovered."

Lulu's face registered shock and disgust long after the two nurses walked away and left her alone in the hall, and after a few moments to let it all sink in she still wasn't sure what part of the conversation had shocked her the most - that a high-on-pain-medication Kevin meant he started talking about anything and everything, or that Kevin had apparently used the words **fucked up** in a sentence. Or that two nurses seemed to think that Kevin was married to her mom and was also her father. "Oh, he's not my -"

Her fingers flew across her phone as she typed out two messages back-to-back before tucking her phone in her back pocket.

 _Be_ _ **very**_ _glad you aren't here_ to Nikolas, and to Maxie, _Ew. Ew. Ew. Kevin Collins is high on pain medication and the side effect for him is that it made him talk to a bunch of nurses in detail about wanting to have lots of sex with Mom. Ew. Ew. Ew._

Lulu took a few minutes to herself to steel herself to go back inside that hospital room and not give any outward indication that the nurses had told her anything or that she knew anything that had come out of Kevin's mouth. That was the very least of what she owed her mom and she supposed that Kevin's behavior could always be worse if he was high on pain medication, he could have used his sudden-and-out-of-character talkative nature to curse the hospital staff or even her mother. Neither of which sounded at all like Kevin no matter what medicines he was on. (Lulu ignored that little voice in her head that warned her she didn't have a right to say what sounded like Kevin and what didn't because she didn't know him at all. Stubborn conscience.) She walked inside the room and did her best to brace herself for a first-hand and possibly only experience with Talkative Kevin.

Lulu walked into the room, looked at the scene before her, tried not to look too closely at just how much of her mother's body was in Kevin's personal space bubble, and in spite of herself she wondered what Kevin had said this time. Even with her mom's face half-buried in Kevin's shoulder, Lulu could see her lips moving to whisper something softly to him and could see the faint blush on her cheeks.

"Kevin, honey, you've got to stop saying that," she heard her mom admonish him ever so gently, in a voice that barely rated above a quiet whisper. "I want to go home, too, but you can't say those kinds of things in front of people. You can't tell people why you want to take me home." As usual for this night It didn't escape Lulu's attention that her mom wouldn't stop touching him.

The impulsive Spencer gene took over, Dante told her that impulsiveness would get her into trouble one of these days, and the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. If her mother was going to be embarrassed and Kevin wasn't going to remember any of it anyway, Lulu figured she might as well get some entertainment out of it. So she played along. "Do I want to know what he said?"

Kevin raised his hand as though he was a little boy waiting to be called on in school and looked positively giddy at the idea that he had a high probability of both embarrassing his girlfriend and breaking every single social decorum rule he had ever learned. It actually made Lulu smile at him. "I told her that I wanted to take her home and put that dress back on that she had last night. So I could take it off her and it would be on my bedroom floor and she'd be naked in my bed."

The corners of Lulu's mouth twitched despite her feelings about the subject Kevin had started with and she had to look up to the ceiling for a second or two so she wouldn't burst into laughter. Oh, this was going to be _such great_ blackmail material for the both of them when Kevin was back to himself. "I'm sure you would."

His response was immediate and matter-of-fact businesslike. "She would more than me. Last night your mom and I were in my apartment and she was kissing me while I was carrying her to the couch, but she was mean and kept distracting me 'cause she did this this really, really good thing with her tongue and it felt really, really, _really_ good, and - "

"Kevin Collins!" Her mom's voice came out in a hurried whisper-yell. Lulu's first thought was that whatever her mom had done to Kevin the night before with her tongue she wouldn't be doing that again anytime soon, and she promptly swallowed back bile that tickled her throat because her mind had actually gone there. She did not want to think about that. "That is not appropriate conversation in front of my child!"

Lulu knew she couldn't trust Maxie to keep this within the family so she wasn't going to tell her any of this. Her mom would literally murder Maxie _and_ Lulu if any of this conversation became public knowledge. She already looked like she didn't know what she wanted to do more, run out of the room or cover Kevin's mouth with her hand. Lulu took pity on her and stammered out some vague shushing noises. "Oh, I don't need the visuals, please!" Lulu said quickly, her words stumbling over each other in a rush to get out. "What you and mom do in your own time is your own business and that is a picture I really **don't** want, thank you!"

"You're welcome," Kevin said matter-of-factly. So matter of factly and without any sense of irony that Lulu had to look up at the ceiling again so she wouldn't laugh. This version of Kevin was funny. Lulu watched as Kevin turned his head slowly between Laura and Lulu and she saw the exact moment that he remembered that Laura had just yelled at him. His face scrunched in befuddlement. Lulu watched in utter amusement as he patted her mother's hand to get her to stop being mad at him, and then he turned his attention, such as it was, back to her. "Aw, don't look sad like that, you're my baby, you're not supposed to be sad. You're our happy girl 'cause you make us happy. You know your mother and I have sex, Lulu, how do you think you got here?" Kevin beckoned Lulu closer like he wanted to tell her a secret. "I'll give you a hint: there wasn't any stork. Your mom was pregnant."

Lulu blinked and exchanged a worried look with her mother. Elizabeth had told them earlier that Kevin had been hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat and also kicked in the side of the head more than once, had that done some damage that couldn't be undone? Something the doctors hadn't seen during surgery? Was it purely the medications making him out of it like this and his unfiltered persona would wear off in a few hours, or did Kevin really not know that he wasn't her father? That scared her. Lulu purposefully kept her tone soft and her words careful. "Kevin, you're not my father and I'm not your girl," she said quietly. "Mom was pregnant with me, yes, but my brother and I are Luke Spencer's children. We have a half-brother named Nikolas. You have a daughter named Christina with your ex-wife Lucy."

Lulu's worry heightened when Kevin's face was blank for a few seconds and then scrunched into an expression of confusion for the second time since he'd woken up from surgery. He looked at her mom with a mix of childlike wonder and wounded betrayal, but for the most part looked unbelievably sad. Lulu didn't know how to feel about that. "B - but you said. You yelled at me for inappropriate conversation in front of our child. You said it. That's not fair, you can't take it back." He appealed to Lulu's common sense and perfectly-functioning ears. "Tell her, sweetheart. Tell her she can't take it back after she said it. That's a rule, you know."

Lulu relaxed at once because if he could use the word inappropriate correctly in a sentence his brain function had to be just fine, and he was simply, hilariously under the influence. But she would have to think about it later about how Kevin's unfiltered nature brought to the forefront that he thought he was her dad. Her mom sat back down in the chair besides Kevin and brought his uninjured hand to her mouth, pressing a soft kiss to his skin. "I'm sure Lulu appreciates that you want to get to know her but she's not your child. And before you open your mouth that doesn't mean I ever cheated on you." Lulu recognized immediately the patiently indulgent tone that her mom used with her boyfriend was the same tone of voice she used with Rocco when she wanted him to behave. "She's my child," her mom murmured quietly, patiently, carefully running a hand through Kevin's hair. "My daughter, Kevin. Mine, not ours." Lulu privately found it hilarious how Kevin still looked like he didn't understand but still managed to look sad all the same. "We've only been dating for three months, you goof."

Kevin wouldn't be deterred from his ultimate goal. "We've got time, then. When I get better we can go home I'll take you to bed and we can make a baby. It'll be fun, I promise."

Lulu finally could no longer help it and started to laugh because a drugged-up-on-pain-meds and uninhibited Kevin was _hilarious_. Her mother immediately narrowed her eyes and glared at her and she mouthed an apology. Kevin looked at her mom like his whole world depended on what she said next and it impressed the hell out of Lulu, she had to admit, as she watched her brush the hair out of his eyes and press a tender kiss to his forehead, that aside from her first embarrassed outcry her mother was talking every one of Kevin's questions and comments seriously and hadn't so much as laughed at him a little bit. "I have no doubt that it would be. We talked about this last night, it's okay if you don't remember that right now, but I told you that my baby-making days are over and have been for quite some time. I'm so sorry to spoil whatever ideas you had for us. But we can babysit Spencer and Rocco some weekend if you want. Not on the same weekend, of course, but we can work something out with Nikolas and Lulu. Would that satisfy you?"

Kevin dropped her mother's hand and seemed to find the stark white color and the crispness of his hospital sheets suddenly worthy of the utmost fascination. Lulu didn't want to be admonished by her mother again and had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at his petulant whining. "You took away Lulu and now you won't have a baby with me. I really, really, a lot want a baby with you." He looked up at her mom curiously. "Are you sure you're done?"

"Kevin…" her mom laughed, but Lulu detected a hint of warning in her tone. That was interesting. Lulu added that to her list of things to file away for later observation. "Let's not do this here…"

"Lucy was pregnant twice," Kevin said matter-of-factly. "Twice. They were mine both times, but we lost both of them. So my swimmers work. We could have a baby if you wanted to, Laura."

"Kevin, I'm sorry but I am very sure that I am done having babies," she told him. Lulu saw how her mom got even closer to him when she whispered to him that they could talk about that later, privately, and they could talk about what he had said about his past with Lucy. "We had that conversation last night, honey, but we can talk about it again when you're a little more yourself, trust me. It wouldn't be fair to the children we have if we had another one, even if it was possible. You were the one that said that last night. I wouldn't do anything to put any of us in danger and neither would you."

Ten minutes went by where Kevin talked a lot more about many things all three of them would later wish he hadn't - it wasn't anything as horrible as getting explicit play-by-play detail of what he wanted to do to her mom once he was out of the hospital, thankfully, she had been afraid that had been where the conversation was heading at one point - but still Lulu was inordinately pleased at how Kevin's eyes always tracked to keep her mom in his immediate line of vision.

Until he tore away from looking at her mother to look straight at her. And he wasn't happy. "I know you," he sighed. "You're Lulu Spencer. You're the great Luke Spencer's daughter. That's why you don't like me."

"You don't like me," he said matter-of-factly, in a tone that he would have used with his accountant. No emotion to it and Lulu glanced worriedly at her mother. An unfiltered Kevin talking about why he didn't like her could be bad for all of them but especially for his relationship with her mom. Lulu did want her mom to be happy, even if it was with Kevin. "Lulu doesn't like me dating her mom because she doesn't want her mom to be with anyone but her dad." Lulu didn't even have time to wonder why he was bringing this up now and here of all places or why he was talking about her in the third person when he knew exactly who she was and he was looking right at her because he opened his mouth again. "It makes your mom sad that you don't trust her to make her own choices for her life, and that doesn't work for me because I don't like seeing her sad. I especially don't like seeing her sad because of you. I hate it, if you want to know the truth. If you'll let me be honest with you. I hate that she cries because of you. She cries because one of her children, one of the three people in the entire whole world that are supposed to support her and encourage her happiness because that's what she's always done for all of you, isn't letting her be happy. Do you even know, Lulu, that she came over to my apartment a month ago and she cried in my arms for twenty minutes because you had started using Olivia as the primary babysitter for Rocco and not her? Or do you not care how much you're hurting her?"

"Kevin, shh," her mom murmured. "Let's not get into this now. Please, we can talk about this at home."

But Kevin did want to get into this conversation now. "I'm not trying to infiltrate your life and replace anyone, Lulu." Lulu rolled her eyes despite her mother's frosty glare in her direction because of course Kevin **would** be still be able to correctly use words like inappropriate and infiltrate in sentences under these circumstances. "You have a dad and you've made it clear to both of us that you have an issue with me dating your mom. You allowed your father to move on but not her. I gave you a free pass the last three months because of your mother but not anymore. I...care about your mother very much. I love spending time with her. I'm sure your mother would like the three of us to be able to spend time together sometimes but if you're never going to be okay with that you're going to need to put on your big girl panties and let me know. I'll stop trying to be your friend. But I won't stop dating your mother, Lulu. She's an incredible woman and the best thing is that she's a really good kisser. She makes me happy, she makes my life good again, and I want to think that I make her happy too." Kevin's eyes glazed with the glassy sheen of the overly-medicated but even so he looked sure of himself and what he was saying and his anger at Lulu penetrated through everything. "She makes me happy. I want her. I want her with me. As long as she says she'll have me I intend to be in her life. As her boyfriend or as her husband it doesn't matter but no matter what our life together is I'm _not_ giving up your mom, Lesley Lu Spencer. Do I make myself clear?"

Lulu barely heard her mom interrupt through the overwhelming urge to scream or cry at everything Kevin was saying, mostly because it was all true. Her mom's voice interrupted again, firm and strong. "I think that's enough," her mom said sharply. "Kevin Collins, do you hear me? I need you to stop talking now. That's enough."

Kevin stared at her mother unrepentant and unapologetic but somehow cute enough still Lulu suspected her mom would go easy on him and find him adorable. He was medicated and had just gotten out of major surgery, after all. "I'm not sorry."

Or maybe not. "I don't care if you're not sorry, you still won't speak to my daughter that way."

Lulu watched Kevin's face crumble like it did the last time when her mom had been angry at him and she had to begrudgingly admit to herself - but only to herself - that if this was Dante and he had just looked at her like she had run over his favorite puppy while kicking a kitten, exactly how Kevin was looking at her mom, she would think he was super-cute. "Kevin, come on, don't give me that face. You were rude and unfair to Lulu."

"No, please, mama, by all means let him finish." Lulu crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her mother's boyfriend. He might have said things that weren't untrue but she couldn't take anyone that wasn't her family telling her exactly how much of a brat she had been to her mother. This was something he'd been wanting to say to her for three months and his lack of a filter because of the medications had finally made him say it. "You said you gave me a free pass, and _thank you so much_ for allowing me to interact with my own mother on my own terms even though it didn't meet your approval, so now I'm returning the favor. You have a free pass, Kevin. Finish telling me how I've been unfair to you and my mother and a horrible daughter when my mother neglected to even tell me she was dating you and I had to find out by watching you and her make out in the hallway of this very hospital."

And so he did, for the next ten minutes, cheerfully ignoring every one of Laura's attempts for him to be quiet. He purposefully used a slow cadence and words with no more than three syllables so Lulu wouldn't have reason to claim she didn't understand. Until he stopped mid-sentence with a deep frown and a furrowed brow because he no longer had an audience of two but now just an audience of one.

Kevin frowned even more when he tried to move his right leg and something heavy stopped him. Laura and Lulu or the nurse would have told him if he had broken his leg but maybe they forgot. He really needed to go to the bathroom. "Where'd she go?"

He reached out for her wrist and stared in enchantment at her bracelet, pulling back the string with his fingers and snapping it back against Laura's wrist until she told him sharply to stop that now. He responded by touching each of the bracelet stones one by one and avoiding looking at her. Laura indulgently and lovingly rolled her eyes. If someone had asked her to describe how her grandson behaved when she caught him doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing it would be exactly like this, and Rocco was well-immersed in his terrible twos. "She's in the bathroom, honey, and seeing as how you kept on talking until you made her cry, I'm thinking it's a safe bet that she won't be coming back here. I should be getting a text from her any minute telling me she's going home. Or maybe I won't with the way you spoke to her." Laura crossed her arms over her chest and on purpose she crossed her right arm over her left so he wouldn't be able to distract himself with her bracelet. "Are you proud of yourself, Kevin?"

"Yep!" he said proudly. "She deserved it since she made you sad all the time." Kevin was sad that Laura didn't share his enthusiasm and she didn't smile at him either. He really, really needed to go to the bathroom. His girlfriend was mad at him, she might not take him. She didn't look happy and he needed her to be happy. Not sad or mad like Lulu. Maybe if he tried to be nicer and made her happy she wouldn't be sad and she would help him. He lifted his uninjured hand to Laura's face no matter how much it hurt him and carefully traced her cheek with two of his fingers. She had such a pretty face. "You're my girl, Laura Spencer. I don't want to see you sad."

Laura's resolve to stay angry for the things he had said crumbled when she looked at him and saw nothing but love in his rich brown eyes, with added worry and gentle concern. It wasn't entirely his fault, not really. She hadn't expected to hear some of his true feelings about Luke, in all honesty, but she had provided him with more than enough ammunition and probable cause the last three months - nine months, if she included their friendship - to make the majority of his comments true, and he **was** on at least four different medications according to Elizabeth and the nurses up here. Some of the things Kevin had said were more true than others and some of his candid commentary hadn't needed to be said at all (there were a few things he'd said they'd need to have a very long talk about and she knew that she wouldn't be in close physical proximity to him when they did) but he hadn't said anything that he couldn't come back from, Lulu's running away in tears notwithstanding, without heavy-duty groveling. To her and to Lulu, and even to Lucky over the phone. Which she was more than prepared to make him do, tomorrow. Lulu was her daughter at the end of the day and no matter what she came first.

"Oh, Kevin," she sighed in resignation. She leaned over the rail of his hospital bed to touch her forehead to his and pressed a barely-there kiss to his forehead, his nose, his cheek, his mouth, every safe part of him she could reach, and continued to hold tight to his hand like she didn't want to let go. Because she didn't. She didn't care if he was medicated or out of it or if he even knew for real what had happened to him. She didn't care how talkative or opinionated he was as long as he was alive and here for her to hold him. "You and I are going to have a very long talk tomorrow about everything that you said but it wouldn't do either of us any good right now because I know you won't remember. You'll feel better when you get some sleep." She pressed a soft kiss to his knuckles and took her seat again right beside his bed, reaching for the extra blankets Elizabeth had instructed the ICU nurses to give to her in case she fell asleep, too. "And I'll be right here. When you wake up again I'll be right here."

And she was. She was asleep beside him three hours later when he woke up grunting in pain because everything hurt, everything hurt so bad that it felt like he couldn't even breathe without white-hot pain that seared through his chest and his ribs. He yanked her hand away from the on-call button and told her he could deal with it, he was fine, it wasn't bad enough to call a nurse. He only wanted to be with her and hold her hand. She must be exhausted. She was there blinking back surprised tears when he snapped at her to get him a strawberry milkshake from Kelly's now and he didn't care that it was five o'clock in the morning and Kelly's wasn't open. He wanted a milkshake, dammit. And above all, she was there to see the dawning look of realization in his eyes when he struggled to come up with the word strawberry never mind getting the connection between his brain and his mouth, and when he finally managed to come up with simple words they came out of his mouth slurred and unclear.

She was right there to push the on-call button no matter what he said when his entire body jerked and he started to shake uncontrollably. She rushed to his side to hold his hand until the doctors and the nurses and even Elizabeth came running, smoothing back his hair and telling him quietly that he was going to be all right, the seizure would be over soon and the doctors would get this under control. Laura was there to see the fear in Kevin's eyes as he wanted to say her name but the words wouldn't come and he tried to reach for the air where her hand had been. She squeezed his free hand and told him with a calmness she didn't feel that he was going to be fine. Everything would be all right.

Elizabeth took her into the hall while inside his room the nurses pumped Kevin full of medications at doctor's orders that were supposed to get his seizure managed and prevent any others, and told her that unfortunately seizures such as this were to be expected with the injuries Kevin had sustained and the amount of trauma had brain had been through during the attack.

And then the intercom blared with another code for more doctors to come to Kevin's room number and Elizabeth rushed back inside and Laura didn't know how long it was that she was alone until her former daughter-in-law-returned. Laura remembered everything about the moment Elizabeth returned. When Elizabeth told her with sadness in her eyes that Kevin hadn't responded the way they had hoped to the seizure medications and that in fact he wasn't able to follow the light they had shined in his eyes, answer simple questions, talk, or respond to them at all.

Laura's hand went to her mouth to stifle a sob at Elizabeth's next words before she even said them. Kevin was alive, but for his health and for the best chance of a full recovery he was now in a medically-induced coma.

And her world came to a screeching halt.


End file.
